I recently wrote about Crimson Trace’s interesting banner at the NRA annual meeting in Louisville. The banner depicted 5 individuals using guns with Crimson Trace lasers to defend themselves. A majority (3 of the 5) were female, reflecting Crimson Trace’s heavy marketing to women. And yet the body language of the men depicted (leaning in aggressively) was very different than the women (leaning back defensively). I found that noteworthy as gun culture continues to attempt to bring more women into the fold.

This was fresh in my mind while I was going through some old gun magazines recently, again looking at the advertising more than the content. I was struck by a pair of ads run by Crimson Trace in The American Rifleman in 2009.

In February 2009, the following ad appeared:

And in April 2009, its apparent twin:

The first thing that struck me about both of these ads…