You might call it California’s Assembly Bill 2571 the ‘Don’t Say Gun’ bill. The bill would “prohibit a person or entity that publishes materials directed to minors in this state in any medium from marketing or advertising firearms in that material, as specified, and would prohibit a person or entity that publishes a marketing or advertising communication from publishing or disseminating marketing or advertising for firearms that is attractive to minors…”
Current law bans advertising to minors. The new language — banning ads that are “attractive to minors” — would make the ban vague and broad enough to drive a truck through.
It was already abundantly clear how much regard California’s legislature has for Second Amendment rights. It appears they have every bit as much contempt for the First Amendment, too.
You can read the bill here.
If passed, you can bet that any use of cartoon characters in ads is out, but what about bright colors? Will ads for guns like these be considered unduly “attractive to minors?”
What about this?
The penalty for each violation is $25,000. If you’re Ruger or Taurus, do you want to find out?
Will an Eddie Eagle gun safety promotion be considered over the line?
The Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex already (falsely) considers the NRA part of the “gun lobby.” Will California prosecutors treat an Eddie Eagle ad as marketing guns to kids?
How about using a stock image…like this one?
If you’re advertising shotguns or a hunter education course and use a pic showing a dad hunting with his son, could that also be considered “attractive to minors” and promoting the sale of firearms if someone under 18 sees it? What are the odds?
Advertising is, of course, generally considered protected commercial speech and any government regulation has to meet a high bar. This abomination of a bill would trample all over the First Amendment rights of producers of lawful products that are sold everywhere in America.
The bill will, of course, be fought tooth and nail by the industry, but the California Legislature might as well be considered its own gun control lobbying organization. The only thing surprising would be if the bill isn’t passed.
The NSSF’s Mark Oliva told TTAG . . .
California lawmakers aren’t satisfied with destroying Second Amendment rights. They are now targeting First Amendment rights. Commercial speech is still protected speech, even if California’s bought-and-paid for gun control politicians disagree with it.
The most egregious part of this is the intent is squelch the traditions of parents teaching their children safe and responsible firearm ownership. Advertising images of parents and youths hunting together would be illegal. Youth hunting clothing branded with firearm and ammunition maker logos would be banned.
The bill authors know this is trampling on First Amendment liberties, yet they don’t pause for a moment to consider that federal and state laws prohibit youth from purchasing firearms.
Oh, that’s right. It’s already illegal for anyone under 21 to purchase a gun in the Golden State. Any gun. And then adults have to wait 10 days before taking possession of their new firearm. To say nothing of the background check they have to clear. Both for the gun, and for any ammunition they may want to buy.
Remember, though, this is California, where they’ve been solving their violent crime problem since the 1960s with one gun control bill after another. This one is sure to do the trick, though.
Gosh, it’s almost as if they won’t really be satisfied until it’s impossible to buy a gun legally in the state at all.
I’m incredibly immature, and all gun ads are attractive to me.
CA is what happens when far too many Gun Owners failed to define Gun Control by its history. I.E. The word “noose” has been clearly defined for everyone by its ugly history. But when it comes to defining Gun Control for everyone by its much, much more ugly history some Gun Owners fold like a cheap tent.
Lots of people assume Gun Control is self-explanatory. It is not. It requires a history lesson.
When they going to ban movies and video games? These fascist loves them some book burning.
Will games, especially “Call of Duty” be considered advertising for minors? And lots of free games such as Roblox Arsenal and Phantom Forces.
Looks like Californians will need to fire up the lawsuit pipeline and slap that bullshit down… 🙁
The groomers have always been against children learning about their second amendment civil rights. And the groomers don’t have children. They just need access to yours.
Tom Ammaino
“Ammiano was instrumental in getting rid of San Francisco’s High School competitive .22 cal rifle teams, and worked to put an end to the junior ROTC program in San Francisco’s High Schools. Ammiano supported the ban on allowing gun owners to carry an unloaded gun in public. “Whether a gun is loaded or not, it’s still an act of intimidation and bullying,” Ammiano said.”
https://calwatchdog.com/2013/01/29/anti-gun-lawmakers-lead-hearing-today/
Here’s another brand new bill submitted by our Democrat Overlords in Sacramento:
AB1621 (Mar 2022 – Gipson, Maratsuchi, Ting) expands the swath of CA’s concern over items being defined as “precursor parts”. That’s not news, but check out this excerpt from the bill’s text saying what guns are:
Section 1 (a)(1)
“…the sole function of firearm precursor parts is to be used to assemble a weapon designed and capable of ending human life.”
I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts the three co-sponsors have never been around varmint guns specifically designed and built to protect crops and/or animal herds. Or of .22LR match competition guns designed and intended specifically to place little projectiles through sheets of paper.
Their real wish is to ban “Wrong Thinking” people. They really want re-education camps like in China. This is their dream, only fools will standby and let it become a reality. Unfortunately Kalifornia is full of fools. Glad my family and I left the Socialist Paradise in 2012.
(sigh)
Okay, Mauser. You think CA is full of fools. I’m a Californian, as well as ‘Mark N’, ‘jwm’, and others here on TTAG. ‘Cuz we’re all fools. Got it.
I’m a CA fool too, I dont blame guys like Mauser for thinking we’re fools. Too damn many of our fellow Californians are fools. All we can do is try and fight the good fight from behind enemy lines or pull up stakes and head out.
I’m not in a position to be able to do the ‘head out’ option so. I’m ‘standing my ground’.
If Mauser6863 is familiar with you at all I’m sure you weren’t included in the fools part. I left California in 2015 after having lived there since 1973. There are a lot of fools there but my nieces and nephews and many friends aren’t included in that broad statement. Kyle is right.
Haz and Kyle,
No, I don’t think you’re fools . . . but if you stay there, don’t blame those of us who escaped that socialist s***hole for what happens to you. The People’s Republic of KKKalifornia is beyond redemption, until it is depopulated and we can start over again. Beautiful place . . . s***est government of any state (even NY . . . well, MA may give them a run for their money). GTFO, while you still can.
I am confident that some of us “fools” are compelled to be here because of circumstances beyond our control. Sometimes a dearly beloved relative can’t leave the state due to physical infirmities and as a close relative we are bound through love and perceived duty to remain to insure that loved one’s care is proper. Should those circumstances somehow change all you will see and hear from me will be a cloud of dust, a flash of white and a hearty “I’m outta here.”
Where are all these gun ads?
I see ads for drag queen this and drag show that in the free local paper everyday. No gun ads.
In gun mags and on gun blogs, of course. Those are the only places I’ve noticed them anyway. (Not that I read very many of the ads.)
Drag queens, homeless crapping in the streets,get your needles here,child grooming in schools, illegals flooding in and sucking up everything they can etc.etc.
Thats all fine with them.
Sad to say but cali.is just about a lost cause, and I have family and friends there. Most in the military that can’t just pull up and leave. So sad.
How in the world would a state Attorney General establish whether or not an advertisement is appealing to minors? As the article mentioned, this is a clear violation of the First Amendment.
I have said in the past that the Second Amendment is simply the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” of inalienable rights. That is a timeless truth which the California legislature reinforced with this bill.
Gun ads??? Have they heard of the internet? TV,DVD,games and the easiest one>a PHONE. The level of imbecility is astounding!
Give them time. It takes time to boil the frog. Liberalism is like a slow forming cancer. It slowly metastasizes until one day….It’s killed it’s Host. The difference with Liberalism is it’s destructive cells are already spreading out from the Host. All over the Nation. Texas, Idaho, Florida among others. Colorado that has been suffering from the infection for some years. We see the results of the spread in Oregon and Washington. California has it’s counterpart on the East coast with New York and the Mid West fights the scourge from Illinois. Liberalism has been infecting the nation for over 50 years. It is so deeply ingrained in parts of the Host. It may well take 50 years to rid it from the Host. Which I fear is time “We the People” don’t have. Ronald Reagan said. “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people.” I fear We are that Generation and if not us the who will answer the call. Each must decide what kind of nation they wish for their children and their children’s children. Once they are gone.
“How in the world would a state Attorney General establish whether or not an advertisement is appealing to minors? ”
By asking an anti gun coached child of a California politician if they like the pretty colors or the big boom in the ad. Sure to get the outcome they are pushing for.
Eddie Eagle is probably safe since it doesn’t market firearms, only firearms training. But video games? Not sure about that one. Further, since at least in theory all firearms advertising or marketing is attractive to minors, this bill is definitely an advertising ban for all manufacturers and sellers. I’d suggest that retailers (Cabella’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse, Bass Pro, etc. may want to reconsider the sales advert placed in newspapers. The real biggie though is going to be ANY advertising that APPEARS in California on the internet, given that the California AG has had no qualms about dragging in out of state manufacturers/sellers for alleged violations of California gun laws.
Quite frankly, I don’t see the point of it, since minors cannot purchase firearms anyway–so what does it matter if they are “attracted to” various marketing or advertising materials? The only “harm” it can “prevent” is as a direct attack on “gun culture.” (“If they don’t see it, they won’t want it.”) Which is of course ridiculous given all of the “gun violence” on TV and in movies. As the saying goes, “you can’t stop the signal.”
California better regurgitlate Hollywood then. a lot of movies gots gunmsinem.
Gosh, can’t get rid of Hollywood. It’s one of their favorite money trees. Hypocrite snakes.
The groomers have been at this for a very long time now. But they don’t want your kids at a gun range learning about guns and shooting them.
1. From 2008
“First-graders in San Francisco took a field trip to City Hall to celebrate the marriage of their lesbian teacher on Friday, but opponents of same-sex marriage in the state say the field trip was an attempt to “indoctrinate” the students, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.”
https://www.screamandfly.com/archive/index.php/t-170584.html
2. From 2021
‘Why are kids going on a trip to a gay bar?!’ Florida elementary school is slammed after board member took children on field trip to a gay bar where menu items include Willy Cheesesteak and Rhoda Cowboy”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10141223/Florida-elementary-school-kids-pictured-field-trip-gay-bar-sparks-outrage.html
3. Kids birthday parties at the gun range
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/omg-kids-parties-at-a-gun-range-omg/
4. “Preschool taking heat for field trip to gun range”
https://www.fox23.com/news/trending-now/preschool-taking-heat-for-field-trip-to-gun-range/598323798/
5.
tom ammaino
Ammiano was instrumental in getting rid of San Francisco’s High School competitive .22 cal rifle teams, and worked to put an end to the junior ROTC program in San Francisco’s High Schools. Ammiano supported the ban on allowing gun owners to carry an unloaded gun in public. “Whether a gun is loaded or not, it’s still an act of intimidation and bullying,” Ammiano said.
https://calwatchdog.com/2013/01/29/anti-gun-lawmakers-lead-hearing-today/
Sigh – I guess no more ads for Chipmunk .22 LR rifles in Boy’s Life, like I used to see when I was a kid. Do they still publish Boy’s Life? I guess that would be transphobic and ageist. Perhaps, “Developmentally Incomplete Human’s Life.” But then that would include most of the legislative assembly of California.
My first interest in guns was from Hollywood Westerns on the TV. Guess we’ll have to shut down all the cable/streaming/satellite channels that run the old westerns, the old war movies, the shoot-em-ups from the seventies to today, the various cop shows and movies, the gangster movies, and the majority of video games most kids want to play.
Of course, now magazines like Guns-n-ammo, or outdoor life will have to be sold from under the counter, but the gay pride and skin rags will be on full display. As usual the Marxists running California have things ass backwards.
CA has a minimum hunting age of 12. To hunt, those small humans need guns that are appropriately sized. A youth shotgun or rifle has little utility for a 6′ 250# OFWG. Advertising any of these products is by definition attractive to minors. I predict lawsuits aplenty. What about paid placement in video games and movies? Doesn’t that count as “marketing?”
Couldn’t it be argued the advertising is aimed at the parents to inform them of the product range?
Certainly the entire U.S. Nation needs a Federal Law prohibiting glorifying the sale of deadly weapons, especially weapons of war.
Let us remember too that the California bill does not go far enough either.
Glorification of deadly weapons affects young adult men too. Psychological studies prove that the average young male does not reach full mental maturity until age 25. Young men are incapable of realizing the consequences of their actions both to others and to themselves. Automobile insurance agencies further prove that the psychological studies were correct because the majority of auto accidents are caused by people 25 years of age and younger.
Remember these adds are not selling juicy hamburgers and fries but are pushing the sale of deadly weapons and often weapons of war designed to kill large numbers of people in the shortest space of time and the last thing we want is to glorify them to young impressionable men. After all the Military does this to get them to volunteer to be used as cannon fodder in America’s wars of rape, pillage and conquest and it works very well unfortunately.
I was wandering how long it would take before a book burning fascist would show up. herr dacian never fails to please.
Jethro (our poster boy high school drop out) you always get History backwards or in most cases not at all. Its the Far right Republicans that are banning books by the hundreds just as Adolf Hitler and the Nazi’s did. They were and are both cut from the same jack booted demented cloth.
@dacian
Yes and banning ads for cigarettes targeting youth and the general public worked well huh! 400,000 people die each and every year in the US from tobacco related products compared to 30,000 or so to guns which of that 2/3s are suicide.
Here you are again, apparently with no real life to live, churning out poorly structured inane frivolous musings in a desperate attempt to appear relevant. That’s just what Biden is trying to do!
to MLee
Once again the Far Right ignore Historical truth not at all. Cigarette smoking and pipe smoking has dropped drastically since public health campaigns made people aware of the danger not only of smoking but of second hand smoke. This is why businesses today ban smoking indoors that kills employees that do not smoke.
Public health campaigns made it “no longer cool” to be seen with a cigarette dangling from ones mouth. Public health commercials showing people dying of cancer from cigarette smoke certainly had a big effect on the younger generations.
Ones level of education also shows that those who are products of higher education also tend not to smoke.
We have seen how the ban on tobacco ads has cut down on teenage smoking and anti drug ads have certainly had a significant impact on drug usage. Why not go for a complete strike out and ban gun ads? Those other bans have proved to incredibly useful. For those to whom “sarcasm” is a poorly understood three syllable word not ordinarily in their vocabulary, it means making a point that is the opposite of what was stated.
As for Dacian’s misguided understanding of smoking ad bans, businesses do not ban smoking in their establishments for reasons of concern about their employees’ health, they do so because they are commanded to by criminal and civil law with substantial fines and/or imprisonment for non-compliance.
Does this means Google and Facebook can be sued by the State of California for anything if this passes?
The real point of this is to bleed them dry with frivolous lawsuits. They saw how the Remington case revealed a a advertising exemption to the PLCAA in that you can get away suing gun manufacturers for advertising but not for criminal misuse.
They don’t give a damn about the kids, they just want to incur enough legal fees that they get what they want from the manufacturers, which is to die.
The State of California should regulate and require the licensing of all Toy Guns.
Scary-looking toys can be banned outright. The “Legal” Toy Guns can be registered and licensed so that the Youths of California can get more acquainted with following governmental regulations. Early training might result in fewer criminals unwittingly possessing firearms.
I am sure we can leave the issue of what is attractive to minors to the minor attracted persons of the California legislature . . .What? Well then, what DOES it mean? Yes, you can whisper in my ear. Mmh, uh-uh, . . .what?
Perhaps government should not be involved in deciding who, or what, is attractive after all.
Don’t make proper gun usage attractive to youth (ignore that California’s big tech industry pushes massive first-person – shooter video games to these same kids) just let the Groomer schools, Groomer teachers and the professional Groomers at Disney make perverse sexuality attractive to the kids instead.
How about this…………
https://adage.com/video/toyota-supra-wizard
If I get hit and injured by a unlicensed minor who stole a Toyota, or someone >18 operated one in an unsafe and reckless manner, I’ll be sure to file a multi-million $ suit against Toyota.
They made an ad showing agressive vehicle operation that’s ‘attractive to minors’, so it’s ALL their fault.
Thanks Cali. 👍
I remember when the atheists went after music programs in schools. And they forced the schools to stop singing religious songs in their music programs. As well as demanding the removal of any religious book such as the Bible from school libraries.
The Libertarians Liberals and the Left have never supported the First Amendment. They have never supported freedom. They have always supported tyranny.
And they are responsible for the removal of 2A classes and shootong teams from the schoools as well.
They support flag burning and cross burning. Including burning a cross on the private property of a black person. Don’t believe me? Go look up the court cases yourself.
They support protests at military recruiting centers. But they do not support protest at abortion clinics.
And they don’t support the right of a property owner to defend their property against a cross burner. Or a graffiti “artist”.
All thanks to the Wee1 Tactical Jr-15 .22lr Newsome got so worked up about earlier this year, I am sure!
http://Www.wee1tactical.com
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