Canadians will find this one weird, a Missouri car dealer was bragging to local news that sales have soared at their auto and truck business since launching a promotion last week that promises buyers a free handgun or a $250 gas card with every purchase.

Max Motors, a small Butler, Missouri dealership that has as its logo a grimacing cowboy wielding a pistol, has sold more than 30 cars and trucks in the last three days, far more than its normal volume. And owner Mark Muller credits his decision to start offering buyers their choice of a $250 gas card or a $250 credit at a gun shop.

Every buyer so far “except one guy from Canada and one old guy” has elected to take the gun, Muller said. Muller recommends his customers select a Kel-Tec .380 pistol. “It’s a nice little handgun that fits in your pocket,” he said.

Muller said the promotion was inspired by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who is vying with Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee for the presidential election in November. “We did it because of Barack Obama. He said all those people in the Midwest, you’ve got to have compassion for them because they’re clinging to their guns and their Bibles. I found that quite offensive.”

“We all go to church on Sunday and we all carry guns,” said Muller. “I’ve got a gun in my pocket right now. I have a rifle in my truck. We’ve got to shoot the coyotes out here, they’re attacking our cows, our chickens. We’re not clinging to nothing. We’re just damn glad to live in a free country where you can have a gun if you want. This is the way it ought to be.”  Stories like this make me glad I live in Canada.

In some parts of the U.S. the word “Canadian” has ugly connotations and it is not because we refused to join the war in Iraq.  In the south, “Canadian” is a racial slur referring to African-Americans. The term has its roots in the word Canuck, says an expert.

“Canuck, that very same term of endearment Canadians use now,” was used by racist southern Americans to insult French Canadians with dark skins, said Stefan Dollinger, editor in chief of Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles. Over time, we gave the word Canuck a totally different spin and it now refers to any Canadian, he said.

“In the U.S. some people still use Canuck as a slur,” said Dollinger, who is also the director of the University of British Columbia’s Canadian English lab.

Internet message-board posters have been discussing the issue of southern Americans using the word Canadian to replace racial epithets for black people.

A Texas district attorney got into trouble and have left others wondering what exactly it means when he used the word “Canadians” to describe blacks on a jury.

In an e-mail to a junior prosecutor, district attorney Mike Trent wrote: “He overcame a subversively good defence by Matt Hennessey that has some Canadians on the jury feeling sorry for the defendant and forced them to do the right thing.”

Reports indicated there were no Canadians, but a number of black people.

“Never heard of that here in Edmonton,” said Michael Broodhagen, local chapter president of the National Black Coalition of Canada Society.   There goes the US being dumb again, it must be an effect of George W. Bush.