How ‘gun porn’ hashtags make weapons look sexy

YOUNG firearm owners in America are using "gun porn" hashtags to make their weapons look sexy amid a terrifying rise in mass shootings.

Millennials are flooding Instagram with snaps of themselves brandishing deadly guns while sending out the disturbing message: #tactical.

The trend follows an alarming rise in gun violence and mass shootings, with latest figures revealing there were 39,773 gun deaths in the US in 2017 - the highest on record in the country - and more than 2700 this year alone.

Last year there were 340 mass shootings, including a spate of bloody school gun attacks.

The grim statistic prompted CNN to claim that at one stage in 2018, there was the equivalent of one school shooting per week, reports news.com.au.

Yet despite the gun violence epidemic, a growing number of young Americans are "glorifying" firearms by posting "countless" pictures and videos to hundreds of thousands of followers.

The worrying #tactical craze was recently exposed in a Washington Post Magazine investigation by reporter Simon van Zuylen-Wood.

He writes: "What’s in vogue are semiautos. Sleek high-capacity weapons originally designed for military use and now favoured by school shooters. The preferred gun of mass murderers — the AR-15 — is also the preferred gun of the sexy Millennials of Instagram.

As part of his investigation, van Zuylen-Wood interviewed Mat Best, the “de facto leader” of the “tactical” movement.

The 32-year-old former Army Ranger boasts a 673,000-strong Instagram following, which he has built up thanks to his catalogue of pictures and videos of himself surrounded by guns.

Then there’s 35-year-old entrepreneur Amy Robbins whose women’s activewear rage Alexo Athletica is designed to allow women to carry concealed weapons during workouts.

She also posts photos of glamorous women holding guns while wearing everything from ball gowns and heels to sportswear to her 29,400 followers.

'GUN PORN'
She told the publication most of the “soccer mums” in her circle were licensed gun owners who jumped at the chance to carry their weapons in their body — and look good doing it.

She added: “We literally launched right at the height of the #MeToo movement. We knew these statistics, we know this stuff has been happening.

“To me, gun rights are women’s rights. What better way to say, ‘Yes, we are equals’, than to actually put yourself on an equal playing field with a man who might be a threat in your life.”

'TWISTED PSYCHOPATHS'
Meanwhile, Best justifies his pro-gun Insta fame by claiming while he had “seen humanity at its worst”, gun ownership was about protection as well as a lifestyle choice.

He also uses that lifestyle to sell coffee as the co-founder and “public face” of Black Rifle Coffee Company.

But it’s not just business owners using the hashtag and jumping on the pro-gun social media trend.

According to van Zuylen-Wood, there are “thousands” of people in the tactical community who post similar content on their platforms each day — especially scantily-clad women like Casey Cook (aka @Buff_cookie), and entire accounts dedicated to showcasing women with guns, like @MachineGungirls and @BUNswithgun.

Many readers left critical comments under the Washington Post article, with one reader claiming the trend was “gun porn” and the photos were “obscene” and left them “appalled”.

“I accept these people have a right to own guns and live as they live. But their frivolity in the face of a public health epidemic of gun violence smacks of white privilege,” that reader posted, while another asked: “Why in heaven’s name are you giving these twisted psychopaths a national platform?”