US Senate Democrats to pass legislation directing FTC to restrict marketing of guns to children

Democratic Senators are set to pass legislation that would direct the Federal Trade Commission to restrict the marketing of firearms to children. The legislation follows the calls by lawmakers for the FTC to investigate the marketing practices of a gun manufacturer.

Senate Democrats will introduce legislation on Thursday calling on the FTC to establish rules that would ban the marketing of firearms to children. The legislation comes a week after Democratic lawmakers called on the FTC to look into the marketing practices of gun manufacturer Wee 1 Tactical, which produces the JR-15 .22 Long Rifle.

The legislation, known as the Protecting Kids from Gun Marketing Act, would give the FTC the resources needed to target gun manufacturers. Existing regulations already restrict the marketing of alcohol and tobacco, among other products, to children.

“A junior version of the AR-15 has no place in a kid’s toy box,” said Senator Ed Markey, who is the lead sponsor of the legislation, referring to the AR-15 rifle that has been used in many high-profile mass shootings in the country.

The bill has a small chance of passing Congress as the Republican-majority House of Representatives has opposed additional gun control measures citing the 2nd Amendment in the US Constitution.

Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Michael Bennet, who serves on the Senate intelligence committee, said that video sharing platform TikTok must be removed from Apple’s App Store and Google. Bennet cited that the app, whose parent company is the China-based ByteDance, poses a threat to the country’s national security. Congress has already banned the app on federal devices.

TikTok has come under increasing scrutiny among lawmakers over concerns that the Chinese government could use the app to gather data on Americans or advance Beijing’s interests.

“No company subject to CCP dictates should have the power to accumulate such extensive data on the American people or curate content to nearly a third of our population,” said Bennet in a letter to Alphabet Chief Executive Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook, referring to China’s governing Chinese Communist Party.

“Given these risks, I urge you to remove TikTok from your respective app stores immediately,” said Bennet.