Tone Deaf
On the heels of children using their little guns to shoot other children and a few adults this week, the NRA Youth Magazine “Insights” (Get it?) has a cover showing their determination to help the upstart Guns for Toddlers industry.
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Indoor shooting’s fun, with BB guns.
No, I am not kidding.
Hell, it’s even more fun with a .22.
The article, while warning the kids that they need an adult’s permission and help to set up an indoor range, also makes it pretty clear that guns just aren’t much fun unless that can make something bleed.
Okay, at what age do we start encouraging children to play with real guns in the house? I dunno these things. I grew up civilized.
Thanks to Brian C for the heads up.
Just what we need!
1Good Lord!
2Well, damn! I remember when the NRA was touted as the one source for teaching everyone safety first with firearms. At the time that did not mean toddlers!
3This is child abuse, plain and simple. The gun industry is so desperate for every $ it can pry out of even a child’s hand, that it markets to kids and their parents eat it up. They want their off-spring to be just like them, brain-dead. The cover should show a little white coffin, and children weeping. If the tobacco companies could be forced to show the consequences of their product, then by God, the gun industry should have to.
440 years ago, I was sitting on my living room sofa, nursing my newborn when a BB pellet broke through my window, whizzed by my ear and buried itself in the wall opposite me. The BB gun was fired by a thirteen year old, whose parents weren’t home. When his father got home, he took that gun and wrapped it around a tree. End of problem. Personally, I would like to take any parent who would give one of these “kiddie” guns to a small child and wrap THEM around a tree.
5Oh you’re just not seeing the big picture. We can’t have women in charge of their own bodies because then they indulge in decisions that aren’t approved of – you know abortions and birth control. So that’s gotta be banned but we don’t want to spend any money on those children either so we let them have guns and they shoot each other – see end of problem. End of sarcasm.
6I don’t understand how Slip and Slide, and Jarts both children’s toys can be banned because of injury to children and yet guns can be given to 5 year olds?
What part of Militia am I missing?
7Can we hope that the NRA has finally stepped over the line that NOBODY (in his right mind, that is) can support? This really takes the cake.
8For dogs sake these people are crazier than *hithouse rats!
And I’m with Carol. I remember when my porcelain clackers
9were confiscated because they would break off and become a projectile (mostly towards my nine year old eyes). My siblings and I would have been laughed out of the house if we’d asked for a gun. I guess we had a sane 70s upbringing.
It’s illegal for cig manufactuers to gear their advertising toward minors. But gun makers can promote those pretty pink real live ammo rifles for little girls, to encourage daddy to buy her one on her 5th birthday. Wacko.
10My kids had BB guns, but they were 10 or 11 before their dad acquired them, and he put the fear of god into them about safety. Unfortunately, when he moved out a couple of years later, he took the fear with him and for a while they had polka-dot walls in their bedroom. A friend of mine said hers had managed to shoot out a window with their guns, so I felt lucky.
But I got rid of the guns. Now I have a musket; I’m not as worried about it.
11Norma, this is one of the best editorial cartoons I’ve ever seen:
http://dailyink.com/features/Margulies/comics/2013-05-08
In case there’s a problem with the link– a man reading a news story on the Plan B morning-after pill says, “I’m sorry, but 15 is much too young for this.” Man next to him says, “OK… Can we get back to marketing this rifle to 5-year-olds?”
12My wife has railed about this non-stop since she read it. Then she turned on me. Didn’t your $%$&%% father buy you guys rifles when you were about 3??? That’s what your mother always said!!!
Nah baby daddy never bought us rifles, but my Uncle let me borrow a rifle of his for six years when I was about 18 or 19.
13The NRA calls its magazine “Insights.” Seems more like rifle sights they’re interested in.
14Norma: You’re a genius. You “killed 2 birds with one stone”, so to speak. Wonder what the overlap is (Venn diagram-style) between white Repug males and these two issues (birth and gun control). Bet it’s 100%!
15I remember back in 1968 (45 years ago) looking through the Sears WishBook, that wonderful collection of toys and things that we’d make our lists to Santa from. Back then, the BB gun was very prominent across two pages, along with other weapons of mass destruction. Chemistry sets, wood burning kits with real heated elements, a junior carpentry set with working electric saws, model rocketry kits, etc.
Nowadays, all of those items except the BB guns would land you on some watch list, or have the officials knocking on the door for letting your child play with dangerous items…
16My grandmother gave me a bb gun for my 4th birthday. I really don’t remember it, but my father loaded it up and dropped me off at my grandparents. When I got home, the gun had been rendered un-shootable. Rural Texas, Guns, Guts, and God.
17TalG, a good portion of those things were in my house at one time or another, though not all owned by the kids. Mom was the one who did wood burning. Dad had a full wood shop, so we used real tools, not junior ones, and only with his supervision. Model rockets I got into in high school, and Dad got into them in a big way, too. We had a ball taking them out into an open field and firing them, but they weren’t any of them more than 15 inches tall.
As mentioned before, I was given a single-shot .22 rifle when I was 8. Wasn’t allowed to touch it before I knew all the safety. Had the safety reinforced every time we went to the range. Not sure I ever touched it EXCEPT at the range, except maybe helping load the car. I know for darn sure that the consequences would have been dire had I ever loaded it in town, let alone in the house. It never even occurred to me to do such a thing with my training.
My main problem with this picture is there is no adult in it. The child is unaccompanied, and that should never happen when they are handling firearms, no matter their age, no matter the gun.
I currently own three guns. One is that rifle. One is a .22. handgun I got when I had a stalker that I keep in my bedroom. The other is a collector’s item that’s never been shot (and never will be while it is in my possession). Never saw the need for more. One for memory, one for safety in my home, one for investment.
18“You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.”
19Rhea – I couldn’t see the cartoon but I have a very good imagination and that is perfect!
Dianne I had some time to think about that. I’m on a political board on FB and a good friend posted the story of the 5 yo shooting his 2 yo sister. You could have heard a byte drop. No response from the right – zip. Yet they can howl with the best of them about the evils of abortion, bc, welfare.
That blue cloud parked over Texas? Sorry about that – I was a little cranky when posting.
20Ex husband almost lost an eye when he was about 9 to a neighbor kids BB gun-an accident, of course, but as I look at the rages my 2 yr old grand daughter gets into, I can only think that in 7 more years if someone was so stupid to put a BB gun in her hands “accidents” would be bound to happen.
21I fully expect that my granddaughter will learn to communicate fully, master her emotions and turn into a productive happy being as her parents are, and as I am–since most of the idiots who would give a gun to a baby child have to have something wrong in their thinking–and there are hunters in our family, I just shudder at what the results will most certainly be…grief, more grief, and grief….