End Family Fire
courtesy youtube.com

By Stephen L. Sanetti

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence has teamed up with the Ad Council to launch “End Family Fire,” a new national multi-platform campaign they say is designed to promote safe storage of firearms in the home.

Also supported by the Gun Safety Alliance, described by Ad Age as “the group of marketers who have come together to address gun safety issues in the States, with the help of the advertising community,” the campaign introduces the phrase “family fire” they hope will catch on as a play on the “friendly fire” term usually used to describe military losses incurred on one’s own side due to mistargeting.

We think the campaign approach is a misfire.

Contrived and Off-Putting

Let’s start with the portrayal of the contrived exchange between the father and the son in the launch video. Maybe that dialog would feel real to advertising people who have no real personal connection to gun ownership, but we’re certain it will be seen by gun owners completely off-putting. And yet it’s gun owners that this marketing/advertising team say they want to reach.

And the messaging is mistargeted.

For, try as they might, the advertising firm behind this campaign does not understand gun owners and, as a result, focus group testing or not, they end up with scripting that speaks to their own sensibilities and to that shared by Brady campaign supporters. They may not think they do so, but the effect is to belittle genuine concerns for protecting one’s family.

https://youtu.be/63Ip-SrUoIQ

A National Safety Council report showed the number of unintentional firearms deaths is at historic low levels with firearms being involved in less than 1 percent of all fatal accidents from all causes. There is no question that each death is a genuine tragedy and every injury is truly sad for all involved. In the end, however, where the End Family Fire campaign falls short is the opening graphics sequence on its homepage graphic prescribing an “inaccessible location” as a starting point for safe storage. You must click through to get to the details.

Project ChildSafe® is Making A Difference

Project ChildSafe – Own it? Respect it. Secure it.In contrast, Project ChildSafe® and the Own It. Respect It. Secure it.® campaign provide education, practical advice on how to speak with children about guns in the home and real solutions that start with a safety kit that includes a free cable-style lock. We’ve distributed over 37 million to date.

Project ChildSafe’s impact is resulting in a real, measurable difference in communities nationwide, evidenced by a U.S. Government Accountability Office report, which concluded that providing free locking devices positively influenced behavior to store firearms more safely. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) recognized that reality with a $2.4 million grant.

We invite everyone interested to visit End Family Fire and Project ChildSafe® online to compare exactly what is being offered.

Ask yourself, what approach do you really think works best to continue to reduce tragedies and increase safety in homes with both children and handguns? We’re confident of our answer. Unless you work on Madison Avenue or in the office of a gun control organization like the Brady campaign, we think you will agree.

 

Stephen L. Sanetti is president and CEO of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. 

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

62 COMMENTS

    • Agreed. I raised three biological children and three step-children and never had a single incident of kids messing with my guns because I taught them about guns from an early age. They handled them, shot them, and respected them. Now it’s just y wife and I at home and we will not be handicapped in an emergency because our guns are locked up.

  2. I keep expecting the kid to grow fangs and attack his father. Very creepy and off-putting.

    AND! The moment the kid admits to snooping and doing things generally not allowed…I would expect that a hide-tanning would be quickly following.

  3. It lost my interest at the “Can I play with it?” line.

    Because my response to that is, “Sure! Let’s go to the range. You can shoot all the ammo you want as long as you help pick up the brass, and be my little reloader monkey.”

    But, yes, it’s not a kid talking. It’s a (figurative) sock puppet for their viewpoint, and that’s why it doesn’t ring true.

    • Well, said. The Ad Council is a politicized, libtard, progressive propaganda bureaucracy that has funding from the US government. They used to be fairly benign (although still preachy) but swerved hard left with Obama’s election. This ad was little more than expensive virtue signalling. I don’t think they missed us as an audience, I don’t think we ever were their audience. They’re preachin’ to the gun-control choir on this one.

      • The AD is also an interesting commentary on contemporary child-rearing practices. The subtext of the AD is that the kid’s already been snooping around his father’s stuff which means, first and foremost, that this kid doesn’t understand or respect the concept of Private Property. The AD’s writers assumed that little kids can’t be expected to leave their father’s stuff alone. Yeah, right, got it.

        I couldn’t help thinking that when I was about this kid’s age I, 1. already knew how to shoot, 2. had been taught gun-sefety, 3. had a very clear idea about which thing’s of my dad’s (his tools . . .so long as I put ’em back) I had his permission to use and which things (his guns and fishing tackle) I was not to touch without his permission. For me to stand and interrogate my father the way this kid was doing would have never have happened because my father, anticipating my childhood curiosity, had taken care to teach me about guns as soon as I was old enough to know.

    • Right!

      Time spent shooting guns together is incredibly fun, and it’s the best bonding time I have ever spent with my son. The last thing I want to do is to end our Family Fire time.

  4. You would be amazed (or not) by how out of touch these people in ad agencies and design studios really are. Just about every day I’m thankful I got out of that career.

    • Seconded, and it applies to so-called “journalism” as well. It’s so hard to watch what passes for news outlets now. With each passing year, as the number of people in the industry who actually have practical experience with, and knowledge of firearms dwindles, the utter cluelessness, and flagrant bias of the entire business is put on display with every story they “report.”

      It used to be a profession devoted to accuracy and verifiable information. More and more, it’s just a never-ending collective spasm of pandering for ratings, clickbait, and the almighty advertising dollar.

  5. A real deep problem with the gun community is the total lack of focus on explaining the importance of the second amendment to children.

    Getting homosexuals who traditionally called gun owners, “gun toting Christians”, or blacks who were the only reason gun control laws were written, recruiting these, adult, groups will not protect our gun civil rights in the future.

    Why aren’t the major gun rights groups working to promote shooting to children???

    Those of us who brought children into this world have trained our kids. But that is not enough.
    And just for the record, I’m black.

    • “Why aren’t the major gun rights groups working to promote shooting to children???”

      Because Negotiating Rights Away since 1934 is too busy fundraising and Standing and Capitulating on the Second Amendment to carry out it’s primary mission when formed in 1871,there is the Appleseed project however.

      • The NRA says there are over 50,000 public schools in the country. I would think that there are many schools who would be very happy to have a rifle team and 2A classes for their students. Even if you got a hundred schools started with rifle teams up and running it would be a start.
        Oh well.

    • ‘Why aren’t the major gun rights groups working to promote shooting to children???’

      Eddie Eagle, Project Appleseed?

      • Eddie Eagle is gun safety. It doesn’t promote shooting sports for kids. There is a junior NRA program, and there is coaching. Many clubs and organization that have kids in shooting sports are sponsored by the NRA or have NRA instructors running it.

      • Quoting two posts –
        “​
        ‘Why aren’t the major gun rights groups working to promote shooting to children???’

        Eddie Eagle, Project Appleseed?”

        “Eddie Eagle is gun safety. It doesn’t promote shooting sports for kids. There is a junior NRA program, and there is coaching. Many clubs and organizations that have kids in shooting sports are sponsored by the NRA or have NRA instructors running it.”

        There are also programs such as the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and the Civilian Marksmanship Program, as well as many other lesser known organizations at local levels that promote youth participation in the shooting sports, but the people who created this propaganda don’t want anyone to know about that, instead they would rather run around scaring each other and small children about the subject of guns instead of informing people about their legal ownership and safe use and storage.

        Of the millions of legitimately owned, kept, and used firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens, whether for sport or protection, how many do you suppose caused fatalities or life altering injuries in America last year or any other year for that matter? The point is if people will handle, store and use their firearms in a safe and responsible manner with respect for their potential power there will be fewer gun death statistics to report. That isn’t their aim, however. The fact is when you investigate all the cases of firearms related deaths in America, someone, almost invariably the shooter, is not practicing proper and safe gun handling and use and most are either ignorant of the rules for safe handling and use of a firearm or their motives are criminal and no amount of rules or regulations or laws have ever been able to eliminate criminal and predatory behavior in human beings.

        These same folks who will create half baked arguments and support them with either falsified or exaggerated or meaningless statistics are themselves fearful and ignorant about how to responsibly own or use a firearm – or when it is appropriate to do so. If they exhibit such poorly thought out arguments and will tell any untold number of lies to achieve their goals then you know they are not dealing square, and they can be expected to make more outlandish claims after they’ve been show to be liars and fools.

        I hope that within my lifetime we will see an end to the practice of presenting lies as facts. This violation of the 9th commandment, (Thou shalt not bear false witness), is not the work of righteous people with a laudable cause, they are manipulative liars who will do and say anything to force their will on the rest of us.

        I hope the people of this country will purge the liars from politics and at the very least make sure it is understood that lying to get your way is completely and entirely unacceptable regardless of the subject or motivation.

        America needs to wake up and demand honesty from our elected leaders. Look at the mess the liars have made. No more career politicians – never reelect anyone, especially if they cannot show you any positive results from their time in office. We have so much dead wood in congress and in the rest of bureaucratic agencies and regulatory bodies that until recently almost nothing has happened that benefits the people for the past 40 years. We cannot keep repeating this. It is time to reset the nation with people who will serve the nation and not themselves. All of these high ranking political figures today are lawyers and they are wealthy. Too much obfuscative language goes into our laws and that makes them impossible to read and understand with an average intelligence public school education. There is no need for this overt complication of the verbiage of legislation and regulation. So much is wrong with the way government works today that it is hard to find anything right.

        I know this isn’t about politics, but in a way it is the essence of today’s politics when you have millions of ignorant and manipulative voters being pounded daily with propaganda and outright lies, those who employ these tactics make this a political issue.

        If you don’t like guns, then don’t own them or use them. That is your right. However, forcing your will on others and attempting to bend them to your will against their Constitutional rights is not a right anyone has. Your rights end at the beginning of everyone else’s. All these ignorant and inflammatory campaigns to outlaw firearms possession by individuals is by it’s very nature unconstitutional, and it is just too damn bad if you hate the Second Amendment and want it gone. Thank goodness we have a bill of rights. If not for that America and liberty would cease to exist. All must be preserved for any to stand.

  6. I grew up in a house that had several rifles and handguns in my parents bedroom and one over the fireplace. Going to my grandfathers house he kept an old shotgun in the chicken coop and guns elsewhere in the house. Same with most other relatives. I wonder how my cousins and I managed to make it to adulthood?

    • My mother who was born in 1922 had guns around. Her parents ran the store in Murray, ID when the gold dredge went through. My grandfather bough the gold from the miners at the store they ran. My mother and her older sister were taught to never touch them, that they were all loaded. They never touched them. I have the same philosophy. My guns are always loaded. I don’t have kids around anymore and unneeded non-daily carry type weapons are behind a locked door but accessible to me in very short order…seconds.

      I have to agree with keeping weapons beyond the reach of children and idiot teens with issues. We all know the type.
      There has to be something each and every household can do to reduce the risk of an unintended gun death.
      Perhaps…..it’s just taking that first step.

  7. Geez I’m glad I don’t have little kids at home. I do have 2 grown sons here and they are disinterested to say the least. So be it…they didn’t growup around firearms. My wife loves guns so whatever. I lock ’em up when both of us are gone. I’m just hoping the kids leave SOMEDAY😦😩😢

    • The orgnization’s website might have it, but they’ve got it designed such that you can’t see anything without enduring their propaganda slide show first. Not worth my time to try to find where they got their 2.9K/year figure.

      • I’ll just leave this here, in case they get bored and decide to go after Toyota and Mazda..

        Annual United States Road Crash Statistics
        ———————————————————————-

        Over 37,000 people die in road crashes each year
        An additional 2.35 million are injured or disabled
        Over 1,600 children under 15 years of age die each year
        Nearly 8,000 people are killed in crashes involving drivers ages 16-20
        Road crashes cost the U.S. $230.6 billion per year, or an average of $820 per person
        Road crashes are the single greatest annual cause of death of healthy U.S. citizens traveling abroad

        And, just for the hell of it. Maybe they want to take a poke at Budweiser and Coors..

        Excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths and 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) each year in the United States from 2006 – 2010, shortening the lives of those who died by an average of 30 years. Further, excessive drinking was responsible for 1 in 10 deaths among working-age adults aged 20-64 years. The economic costs of excessive alcohol consumption in 2010 were estimated at $249 billion, or $2.05 a drink.

  9. When they say they’re targeting gun owners with this ad, they’re lying. I mean, it’s the Brady Campaign, I shouldn’t have to point out that they’re lying. They’re always lying. They probably lie on their lunch order.

    My point is that they’re targeting non-owners, people who know little about guns but might have been thinking of getting one. It’s meant to scare them into not becoming gun owners.

    • That is exactly what this (very disturbing) video is about. It has nothing at all to do with gun safety or reaching the PoTG. This is a tool kit to get casual gun owning men to disarm, and give wives/girlfriends talking points on disarming their husbands/ SOs.

      Its a low blow. It has the force of a punch in the guts because it’s so disturbing…but it is disturbing because it forces one to confront one’s offspring as mortal enemies…in the event they find your (a) gun. It is classic separate the generations propaganda, and utterly and completely unrealistic…but this is dangerous stuff my friends, because it is going to harden the line. As it is there are gun people, people, and anti gun people. This seeks to thin the former , eliminate the middle and embolden the latter, and it’s not a bad attempt.

      We should take this, recreate it, but have a ski mask wearing minority male burst in and gun the kid down while his dad runs for and retrieves his gun in time to save the kids mother and baby sister. All while a voice over explains that we teach children about life, not take advice from them on how to preserve it. Sound nasty? It would be in exactly the same realm as this stuff. Nasty, but effective.

      • During the filming they should of had a couple of people break thru the front door, beat and rob everyone and after the thugs leave, the kid lying on the floor would say, gee I am glad our guns are locked up to keep us safe !

    • Yep, it’s pure anti-gun agitprop aimed at people who know nothing about guns other than they’re ‘dangerous’. And they don’t care one bit how off putting it might be to gun owners.

  10. Well that tured me off and one can hear the typical Leftard drivel from Handgun Control/Brady bunch come dripping thru,Fail.

  11. Firearm safety starts early and should be repeated at each stage of development. Kids must be taught about guns and the rules of safety in regards to guns. Best place to make sure all children are educated about the rules of gun safety is at school because you can’t rely on non gun owners to educate their kids about a topic they have no experience with.

    How ever true this is, anti gun people refuse to educate Americans about one of the most common tools in America. Even when there is more guns in America than humans, they believe their kids will never get their hands on a gun. Anti gun people also want adults to be educated on gun safety and trained before they can get a gun, yet they do not want to provide that education and training in the learning environment where professionals teach.

    Teach firearm safety in school. Stop pretending like guns are not part of America and that it isn’t important to teach kids about them.

    • I gotta ask. How do you think that’ll work after you just freaking watched (or read about) a government sponsored, government made, and government distributed attempt at gun safety education? The logical folly doesn’t stop there either. Do you really want the teachers in your local schools or say the schools in California, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland teaching children about guns? Do you really want to take the chance that this generation just coming through college to be teachers to teach your kids about guns? Look at what they’ve done to math, do you really think they won’t eventually get mushroom stamped by the good idea fairy and do something similar to the gun safety classes? You’re damn right they will; by putting this in the hands of the department of education you are GUARANTEED that soon as a lefty takes the dept. of Education and the White House that those gun safety classes are going to tell every kid they teach for generations that guns are too dangerous to be owned and they are going to use the bogus stats we all bemoan here daily to prove it. No the best answer is possibly doing it yourself or, if you cannot be bothered to, a summer camp type class on gun safety and the 2A run by a private company. To turn the future of gun rights over to the school system is sheer lunacy.

      • You expect anti gun people to send their kids to a NRA program? Most people are not going to do that. They will actively refuse, but they won’t refuse to send their kids to public school.

        Gun safety is very basic and it has to be taught by someone who knows about guns. You can’t have a math teacher with no experience holding a class on guns. You will have to have a firearms instructor that pro gun people go to for private training doing the teaching at the publicly funded classroom.

        There doesn’t need to be any politics involved with simple firearms safety rules, handling and storage. There already is anti gun politics being taught in practically every classroom that has nothing to do with guns. Look at the Parkland protests for the evidence.

        There is shooting classes in some schools and JROTC. Don’t pretend it doesn’t exist or hasn’t.

        Without exposing Americans to guns at a young age, you will be fighting a losing war to keep the Bill of Rights. You must adapt and overcome.

    • I will be impressed when the public schools begin educating children in math, English, science, history, and for God’s sake MANDATORY DRIVER EDUCATION!!! Countless times I have seen people on the expressway pull into an already too close following distance and not even signal – then you have three vehicles traveling near 80 mph within less that a car length between them. Almost every time, the ones in the vehicles following the front one are young and or female, chatting away on their phones, or texting with one hand and not really looking ahead to see what is in front of them. The public schools have stopped Drivers Ed, in favor of all the politically correct, common core, dumbed down garbage they can shovel into their young skulls. Many teenagers can’t hold a conversation with you, and no one wants to hire them because they’ve been taught that their mere presence at a place of employment is enough that they are due $15.00 and hour. Their work ethic is non-existent and their people skills even less so. I have seen several occasions where they as employees will argue with customers instead of following the golden rule of customer service – the customer is always right. Instead of resolving a conflict they end up amplifying it, and we their customers are supposed to be happy with that level of service.

      You also can’t correct these snowflakes because they will melt and call you a hater. Wanting to get what you pay for is not hateful. This country is indeed in need of a wake up call.

  12. My brother died last month and we are cleaning out his house and getting it ready to sell. He did the same on my father’s house 15 years ago, and I asked his 18 and 24 year old son about my grandfather’s Colt revolver. They said they would keep an eye out for it, but they should turn it in to the police or (since it is a collectible) decommission it so it could never be used. They were told that it didn’t work 40 years ago, so just let me have it if found.
    This is what they are taught these days. Both boys were in Scouts and did well at the range.

    • Re: tfunk,

      I tried posting links , read my post on the Daily Digest post. It’s only 1.3 deaths per day.

    • Injury is not death and I wouldn’t be surprised if they padded that number with say some 19YO gang bangers and/or suicides.

      • They always pad it (accidental gun deaths) with suicides. If someone wants to commit suicide, if it isn’t a gun it will be any of an infinite number of ways, using an infinite number of tools. So to lump suicide with a gun into accidental gun deaths is a fallacy. If that same individual bent on suicide jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge would they call it an accidental fall, or perhaps a drowning? Or how about if he/she decides to jump in front of a subway train, is it accidentally being hit by the train, of course it isn’t, It’s an intentional act that could be more accurately called a murder, he/she murdered themselves.

    • Absolute BS! Here in Virginia more people are killed by drug overdoses every year than by all categories of gunshot wounds, including suicide.

  14. Well, that’s a load of crap. Including their BS statistic. I’d like to see the source for that number of “children killed with improperly stored firearms” – unless they mean under 25 year old gang bangers killing each other in Chicago, Baltimore and LA.

  15. I’m surprised there are no comments on the Ad Counsel’s YouTube videos after two days of being up…

  17. This is not aimed at gun owners. This is aimed at the general population and policy makers to try and get them to act and create new laws.

  19. That was so full of BS! Just like all the anti-gunners! More BS than a feedlot in Omaha!
    I’m surprised he was reading from a handheld script! And the Dad’s reaction? More than HS! No brains there either on his responses! They always say “S–t floats to the top of the tank!” And that’s certainly what you get with BooBerg, Cuomo and the rest of them!

  21. Maybe the Democratic Party needs a new slogan. I’d suggest:

    The Democrats:
    If you think our marketing is horrible, wait until you taste our policies!

  22. We as POTG should hijack the “Family Fire” phrase like we did “Downloadable Death”. We should also counter the ad with an alternate version of the same ad(see Ardent’s comment for some inspiration). I actually like the idea of the wife and kids tooling up to save the dad’s life in a little plot twist. Use white actors for white audiences, black actors for black audiences…(you get the idea) with situations that they’re probably all too familiar with. Show them the (D) vision and how it usually plays out for people and then show them ours. Or have an voice-over explanation video detailing everything wrong with the ad and just air it after the Family Fire ad airs on the same network. The placement of the ad could get expensive but production doesn’t have to be. Bottom line, we need to fight back by turning their narrative on it’s head.

    • Use their tagline but have the dad punched out in an altercation while walking down the sidewalk, Mom draws but gets backhanded Son picks up the gun and fires one round into attackers knee stopping the attack and holding the perp as the cop pulls up, Dad’s out cold, Mom’s groggy, cops impressed.

  23. You guys are grouchy. I got all excited over the concept these fools give away cable gun locks! Wow! I have the damn things all over the house, do ya suppose they’d like to give mine away? I have some other types, too!

    • Cable locks are excellent improvised melee weapons. Much better than the old-fashioned “lock in a sock.”

  25. I was taught early about guns, probably about that boys age. But at the same time I was taught responsibility. The kid depicted in this video is far from the reality of an average boy. Look at him fidget in his cute little immature way. Past the age of 3 or 4 years boys in my generation didn’t look or act like that. He is a product of his generation, a generation that has been hovered over and doted on by there parent’s and have never reached true maturity even in their young adulthood. It goes without saying, even though I knew what guns were and how they were used at that age the thought of searching out a KEY to the mounted STRONGBOX that my father stored his handguns in or the SAFE that he stored his rifles, it never crossed my mind. Because of my early education I respected guns, and I was raised to respect my Father and his often times unwritten rules and laws. I don’t know which aspect of this video I find more troubling, the child’s immaturity and precociousness, the fathers stammering almost childlike reaction to the situation, or the millions of imbeciles that will believe that this obvious propaganda video has any merit whatsoever.

  26. Sounds to me like people who don’t own and are not educated on guns are trying to explain to gun owners and people who know how to behave around firearms are once again somehow ignorant. First point I find less than truthful is 8 children a day are accidently killed. If that were true the nightly news would lead with it every day. I think they add gang related shootings in their numbers for effect. Child safe is by far superior but won’t get the notoriety it deserves since the NRA developed it. And it’s been around for years. Why has the nation not heard of it? Same old game.

  27. This campaign is not only misguided but it is counter productive. I have CHOSEN for my child NOT to know there is a gun in the house. She doesn’t need to know, and encouraging her to know only ups the curiosity that usually is behind these tragedies. DO NOT GET KIDS INVOLVED in advertising to adults. This is no different than the old children’s advertising pressuring kids to ask their parents for this toy, or that toy, which the FCC rightly banned. If you actually have a real message, target it to adults, not the kids. This is NOT a gun safety ad, it is an attempt to enlist kids into the gun control advocacy role and as such, is child abuse!

  28. Handguns in the home. No way to generalize. Calls for a family training program. Need to talk about an acceptable death rate for such guns as opposed to bad guys with guns. I suggest the accidental death rate is effected by the experience and training of the father and his own understanding of guns, and any threat that may justify them. The price of a mistake is unbearable. If a family has a gun training should be mandatory.

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