Guns N’ Roses are suing a Texas gun store

Guns N’ Roses have filed a lawsuit against a Texas-based gun store, which they say tricked fans into believing the band were a part of.

The new lawsuit accuses the online store ‘Texas Guns and Roses’ – operated by Jersey Village Florist – of having “selected and adopted defendant’s marks for the purpose of confusing consumers into believing that it was connected or associated with, or licensed by, GNR.”

As well as its gun sales, the store also sells a small amount of roses, which the lawsuit alleges is only done to try and justify the “wholesale appropriation” of the Guns N’ Roses trademark. The band are seeking an unspecified amount of damages and for the store to change its name.

Court papers also allege that after a cease and desist letter was sent to the store of the band’s representatives in 2019, the store continued to “intentionally trade on GNR’s goodwill, prestige and fame without GNR’s approval, license or consent.

“This is particularly damaging to GNR given the nature of defendant’s business. GNR, quite reasonably, does not want to be associated with defendant, a  firearms and weapons retailer.

“Furthermore, defendant espouses political views related to the regulation and control of firearms and weapons on the website that may be polarising to many U.S. consumers.”

Defence attorney David L. Clark told City News Service: “There’s never been any confusion and they have no evidence of confusion. This is an attempt to run up costs and burn us out.

“Our client sells metal safes for guns and flowers, and have a one-stop website and absolutely no one is confused. Nobody thinks we’re the band or there is some affiliation. We will be fighting back.”

Elsewhere, Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose has said he will no longer throw his microphone into the crowd at the end of the band’s concerts, after a woman claimed she was injured by the stunt at their recent show in Adelaide.

The band performed in the South Australian capital on Tuesday (November 29). Some time after the show, a woman named Rebecca Howe told Adelaide Advertiser that she was struck by the microphone; a photo accompanying the report showed swelling and thick bruises on both of her eyes, and cuts to the bridge of her nose.

“He took a bow and then he launched the microphone out to the crowd… and then bang, right on the bridge of my nose,” Howe said, noting that she was in an area of the crowd that “wasn’t even right at the front”. She went on to say that she began hyperventilating, stressed that her face had been “caved in”.

She continued: “What if it was a couple of inches to the right or left? I could have lost an eye… What if it hit me in the mouth and I broke my teeth? If my head was turned and it hit me in the temple, it could have killed me.”

In response, Rose took to social media with a statement, stressing that he didn’t mean to cause any incident with the stunt – one he’d regularly at the end of Guns N’ Roses shows for years. “Obviously we don’t want anyone getting hurt or to somehow in anyway hurt anyone at any of [our] shows anywhere,” he wrote.

The legendary band are also set to headline British Summer Time (BST) Hyde Park for first time next year. The US rock legends will top the bill on Friday, June 30, 2023.

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