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IPPNW demonstrates in the rain. H&K promotes weapons that produce “steel rain.”

That sign greeted a couple of hundred participants in IPPNW’s “Human Target” congress as our buses approached the Heckler & Koch headquarters in Oberndorf this morning in a steady rain.

H&K, the largest manufacturer of rifles and handguns in Europe, is increasing its workforce in order to keep up with the demand for weapons that have killed two million people since  its foundation in 1949, according to Jürgen Grässlin, the foremost expert on German weapon exports. That’s 114 people killed every day, on average, by a firearm made either here, in Oberndorf, or in one of the H&K facilities with a “legal” export license outside of Germany.

No, the congress participants were not here to apply for jobs, but to call for an end to weapons exports, and to draw attention to the nature of H&K’s business, which is global mass murder for profit.

IPPNW-Germany and “Aktion aufschrei—Stoppt den Waffenhandel!” (Outcry for action—Stop the arms trade) sponsored the peaceful demonstration, which took place at the gates of the H&K facility.

IPPNW gathered outside the headquarters of Heckler & Koch in Oberndorf, Germany to protest the global arms trade. (L to R: Jenny Grounds, Vappu Taipale, Ilkka Taipale, Tilman Ruff, Bjorn Hilt)

IPPNW co-president Tilman Ruff outside H&K headquarters

Soft targets? Unfortunately, when H&K and other arms manufacturers use this term, they mean people.