Amazon Pulls Bleeding Ex-Girlfriend Shooting Target After Outcry

[undeterred]

Thanks to multiple petitions, the “ex-girlfriend” mannequin that bleeds when shot will no longer be available to purchase on Amazon.com. “Alexa,” or “the ex,” as she is marketed, was thought to be an April Fool’s Joke when first covered last month. In fact, the doll is a very real product encouraging men to seek fatal revenge against women.

The company that manufactures the target, Zombie Industries, also displayed a target resembling President Obama at the NRA convention last week. Zombie Industries has a line of 15 “zombie” targets, including one woman because, as the website says, “To discriminate against Women by not having them represented in our product selection would be just plain sexist.”

The website features a promotional video showing several men “busting up a zombie chick.” Towards the end, the camera zooms up on a man holding a handgun to the prone mannequin’s head. He pulls the trigger a couple more times after saying, “Dodge this.”

Testimonials from customers praised the mannequin for looking like “my bitch ex-wife” and “a girl I knew in High School.”
Considering the staggering number of women who are killed by exes, boyfriends, husbands, and stalkers each year, Amazon should never have hesitated in dropping the mannequin. Guns are the most common weapon used to kill women, and having a gun in the house makes domestic abusers 7 times more likely to kill their partners. Women aren’t the only ones impacted by this fatal pattern; between 2009 and 2012, 40 percent of mass shootings began with the shooter targeting his girlfriend, wife or ex.

The NRA, which promotes Zombie Industries as a vendor, tried to defend its campaign against universal background checks by claiming women need guns to protect themselves. Thanks to the gun lobby’s fight to maintain the loophole that allows domestic abusers and stalkers to buy guns without background checks, hundreds of real ex-girlfriends will continue to face the risk of being attacked by dangerous men.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/05/08/1981721/amazon-pulls-bleeding-ex-girlfriend-shooting-target-after-outcry/

[MichiganVote]

1. Amazon has been selling some real sick snake oil lately. Not happy about that.

[undeterred]

2. Its nauseating that anyone would create, sell, or buy something like this.

It perpetuates violence against women.

[Hayabusa]

3. The infected and/or zombified lover had been in zombie movies for a long time

that said, naming the doll "The Ex" is just asking for trouble.

[Junkdrawer]

4. A Hate Crime in a box....

Didn't think it was possible

[chollybocker]

5. Amazon sells this shit?

Glad I never shop there.

For every 'ex-girlfriend/unit' sold, Amazon should send $1,000 to one of the many shelters that harbor battered women.

Apologising after profiteering means nothing.

[Lifelong Protester]

6. I signed the petition

and as an Amazon customer (hey, I live in the boonies; it's the only way to get some stuff!) I told them I would soon be an EX customer if they did not pull this. I said I spoke on behalf of all the voiceless, you know, the women who have been killed by ex-husbands, ex-boyfriends?

glad they got the message.