Sheffield knife and air gun offer advert banned by ASA
- Published
The leaflet, posted through hundreds of doors in the Sheffield area, featured various air guns and knives
An "irresponsible" advert promoting an air gun and knife sale has been banned amid concerns about mounting violent crime nationally and locally.
The leaflet, circulated to 1,000 homes in Sheffield, advertised machetes and air weapons including sniper rifles and handguns as being under special offer.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled the Atlas Arms leaflet may cause "serious and widespread offence".
Atlas Arms, based in Sheffield, said the advert was sent by a third party.
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The leaflet, which was dropped through letterboxes, featured offers for a "Black Ops Sniper Rifle" and a "long reach machete".
Despite an over-18 age warning and a requirement for photo ID being stated, the ASA ruled the brochure could potentially be seen by children.
Atlas Arms pointed out knives were sold in many high street shops
The ASA said: "The ad was distributed via a door drop to people's homes on the basis of their postcode, and was not contained in an addressed envelope.
"Because the brochure for weapons could therefore be viewed by any person at those addresses, we considered it was unsuitable for an untargeted medium and irresponsible in that respect."
The ruling continued: "The ad featuring guns and knives had been delivered directly into people's homes, during a climate of widely reported concerns about rising levels of violent crime, in particular knife crime, both nationally and in Sheffield.
"In that context, we considered those factors also contributed to the ad being likely to cause offence to consumers."
An Atlas Arms spokesperson said its advert "did not depict any scenario for which the items would be used" except for a picture of a target.
"Many hardware shops on the high street" sold knives, the firm added.
The watchdog ruled the advert should not reappear in its current form and such ads should not be given out "untargeted" in future.