If you can't fire the gun you can buy the bullets
Defense bond poster for workers: a helmeted soldier lies in grass behind a tripod-mounted machine gun that is firing, under the line 'If you can't fire the gun you CAN buy the bullets' and a red band 'Buy U.S. Defense Bonds'. The bond purchase is framed as the worker's own share in the soldier's fire, with the armed forces' image lending weight to the appeal.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1941
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Bethlehem Steel Company, for the U.S. Defense Savings program
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Corporation
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Fundraise
- Themes
- Home front, Economy and finance, Labor
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, retrieved October 4, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Bethlehem Steel Company. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1062 (NAID 514586).
Text on the object
If you can't fire the gun You CAN buy the bullets BUY U.S. DEFENSE BONDS See your Foreman for details of Purchase Plan © BETHLEHEM STEEL COMPANY
