Smith and Wesson is under fire for promoting a T-shirt that looks suspiciously like one worn by the Proud Boys.
On Monday morning, Smith & Wesson and its suppressor company Gemtech tweeted images of a man holding an assault-style rifle and wearing a black T-shirt with a yellow “PB” written on the front. The Proud Boys’ color scheme is yellow on black.
After receiving backlash for the tweet, the companies deleted it before reposting it with a caption clarifying that the PB on the shirt stands for the militaristic lifestyle brand “Perce|eption Brand,” not the Proud Boys, a far-right streetfighting gang linked to a slew of criminal activities, including racist assaults and the Jan. 6 riot.
GEMTECH® innovation, Smith & Wesson® manufacturing.
Perce|eption Brand creates apparel + goods for the tactical athlete. https://t.co/1RDzgMQ6uz pic.twitter.com/7rQ4s478Zl— Smith & Wesson Inc. (@Smith_WessonInc) February 27, 2023
The T-shirt in question costs $30 on the Perce|eption Brand website. The slogan “support your local enforcer” is printed on the back of the shirt. The store sells T-shirts, hats, patches, and stickers and is a typical “tacticool” outlet.
In the short time between the tweets, many people used the images to claim that the gun manufacturer was promoting the Proud Boys and demanded an apology from the company. Even after the company clarified, some people insisted that the shirt was a reference to the Proud Boys because of the letters and color scheme.
“I worry that some groups of people online are looking for evidence of an insurgent far-right as if they’re in a Hardy Boys novel and that arguing over a T-shirt like this distracts from the larger picture that’s developed over the last couple of decades and the threats it is actively posing to the most vulnerable among us,” Jared Holt, the senior research manager for US hate and extremism at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told VICE News.
That said, he did acknowledge he “can understand the impulse and suspicion” but that it’s always important to wait.
“Right away I was skeptical that a global brand like Smith & Wesson would associate themselves with an extremist group, let alone one as widely known as the Proud Boys,” said Holt. “However you might feel about gun companies, at the end of the day that’s just bad business for a company as large as they are. I couldn’t imagine how that possibly would have made its way through corporate.”
Smith and Wesson, as well as Perce|eption Brand did not immediately respond to a request for comment.