RF recently previewed the latest Bloomberg-funded Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in American “gun safety” campaign. The official video has dropped, along with an MDA press release. A document that begs the question why are we tracking unintentional shootings? How is uniting gun owners and anti-gun whack jobs going to prevent suicides? Clearly, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in American thinks it will. Their latest press release makes the link. . .

 At the start of Mother’s Day week, Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America today released the #NotAnAccident Index and interactive map, a first-of-its-kind tracking of unintentional shootings by children, and launched Be SMART, a new public education campaign asking gun owners and non-gun owners alike to come together to reduce the number of unintentional shootings, suicides, and homicides that occur when firearms are not stored responsibly and children or teens get ahold of a gun.

Is MDA really so far out there that they honestly believe that those wanting to commit suicide would refrain from doing so if parents lock up their guns? After watching the horrible “Keep Your Finger Off the Trigger Video” by Women Against Gun Violence, I had a hard time letting this one go. Back to MDA:

The #NotAnAccident Index and interactive map released today show that since January 1, 2015, there have been at least 80 unintentional shootings involving children, resulting in 57 injuries and 24 deaths—that’s an average of one unintentional child shooting in America every 36 hours.  The index is based on media coverage and police reports of instances where a child 17 years or younger unintentionally fired a gun and harmed either him or herself or another person.

The index is based on media coverage. Not FBI results of investigations. Not outcomes of the court cases involved. The stats include any child under 17, which includes a significant proportion of teenage gang members. So basically, MDA is saying “Forget the facts. My fear trumps your rights.” The saddest part of this particular press release: Melissa Joan Hart’s involvement.

“Just like we protect power outlets with covers from the little fingers of our children, or turn the pot of boiling water so that handle isn’t easy to grab—we must think of storing our guns safely the same way,” said Melissa Joan Hart, actor, director, and mom of three who is featured in the Be SMART video presentation. “The goal here isn’t to scare anyone or take away anyone’s rights, but rather to demonstrate that we have the power to help prevent these tragedies before they happen, and it starts with the Be SMART campaign.”

Melissa parrots MDA’s oft-repeated claim that they’re not against civilian gun ownership, wrapping up this blatant distortion in a warm, fuzzy mom-to-mom appeal on simple gun safety. It’s a modern spin on what Hitler called “The Big Lie“:

In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.

No one wants children – or teens – to be wounded or killed by gunfire. But “allowing” the anti-gun side to control the gun safety message is a big mistake. The logical extension of their campaign: if all guns were locked up no one would ever be hurt. Yes, it’s a slippery slope. To parphrasse Benjamin Franklin, they who would give up essential liberties to obtain a little illusory safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

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48 COMMENTS

  1. a guy i work with (pretty liberal but still great guy) shared their be smart for kids quiz on his facebook page. I shared the wisquars data as a response.

    69 unintentional firearms deaths in kids 0-14 in 2013. behind other public menaces like fire, drowning, poisoning, and even good ol fashioned exposure.

  2. As I see it safety being paramount among our children.
    Lock up swimming pools,household chemical like laundry detergents and keep kids out of cars. Since a lot of car seats are being used improperly and in an unsafe manor.
    Guns and kids safety is actually a very distant problem with most responsible gun owners.

  3. No one wants children – or teens – to be wounded or killed by gunfire.

    I don’t know about that. Some of those teens are the most dangerous people in the universe. Google “teenage murderers” and then tell me that those horrifying critters should be alive and walking among decent people.

    • Dittos. I’d estimate there are at least a few thousand utes in the ghetto hives (hoods) of America that need killin and are just searching for the time/place.

  4. How cute, another former child actor who had a career that was oven when she couldn’t play the teenage witch. Who will be next? Maybe, Punky Brewster is looking for work?

  5. OK I stopped after the bit about lock your gun up with a key chamber lock and the mag in a differant locked place. That’s all fine and dandy, especially if you are a bad parent and worse gun owner and not teach your child gun safety, and no one EVER breaks into your home, and you NEVER need it in a hurry to defend your family.

  6. What happened with #NotOneMore? Are they giving up on Kroger? It seems they are getting schizophrenic.

    • I dunno, “one unintentional child shooting every 36 minutes”? They probably include drive-bys on the assumption that a sub-17-year-old is too young to actually form “intent”. Wonder what the number of post-Newtown “school shootings” is up to now?

      • OOPS–“36 hours”, not “36 minutes”. Still sounds like a puffed-up number. Just can’t trust Everytown with statistics.

  9. MDA is just a diversion for women who can’t face up to the fact that a vastly more dangerous threat to children in suburban homes is the Valium, Xanax, and Oxycodone tablets that the moms leave around their homes in cabinets, purses, cars, and drawers…unlocked. The ER stats tell the story. Guns, aside from the ghetto gang banger neighborhoods, are a non-issue by comparison. I have not known a person in civilian life killed by a gun. I have personally known four young men who died from mixing the above drugs and alcohol. They were each sons or brothers of “nice suburban friends.” In each case it shocked everyone.

  12. OK, watched it–despite my reply above, it wasn’t as bat-guano crazy as I thought. Someone is getting smarter, they appeared to be at least implicitly addressing other forms of danger too (without, of course, admitting that pretty much all of them vastly outweigh guns as sources of child deaths). And some of the other stuff is slipped in more or less unobtrusively (talking about unstable teens, but concluding that all teens need to be denied access to all guns). And of course, they mostly want to “start a conversation”–which no doubt means that the vid itself will be “comment disabled”. Come to think of it, maybe it WAS as bat-guano crazy as I thought.

  13. I am more worried about dogs getting shot by the cops. #NotOneDogMore. Be Smart For Dogs.

  14. Clarissa has come a long way… I mean, it only took her a decade to get another spot on something nobody cares about or watches.

  15. OK, I’m searching youtube and I’m not finding the vid anywhere. Did I miss something?

  16. Melissa Joan Hart is still relevant?

    Guess it says a lot about MDA if that’s the best celebrity endorsement they can dig up. Pshhhht.

  17. “No one wants children – or teens – to be wounded or killed by gunfire.”

    I tend to disagree. Groups like MDA, Brady Campaign, CSGV, et. al wouldn’t get near the cash flow they currently receive from smaller donors if they couldn’t constantly wave a child-sized bloody shirt. They go so far as to inflate child deaths by gun shot and “school shooting” numbers (any bet they will include the Garland, TX shooting as a school shooting?). Just look at all the Derpbook posts over at CSGV calling for the violent deaths of gun-owning families. They like dead kids just fine (at least the ones that have been shot).

    • “They like dead kids just fine (at least the ones that have been shot).”

      And even then, it’s only a subset. It’s the subset they can manipulate in exploitive ways.

      There are plenty of “children” (by their definition) shot each week that they pay no mind to…because those don’t fit their larger narratives.

  18. I didn’t think the video was too bad. At 1:30 or so Ms. Hart actually says, “Every law-abiding adult has the right to own a gun.” I don’t believe for a minute that’s what MDA or Everytown actually believes, but I think it’s HUGE that they are saying it out loud.

    I am all for spreading the word on gun safety, no matter what the source. As to the OP’s statement, ‘But “allowing” the anti-gun side to control the gun safety message is a big mistake.’ True, but that is the gun community’s fault. We should be making these videos and we’re not.

    And comparing this video to the Nazi “big lie,” is a historical distortion that is over the top and uncalled for. The context was that Hitler was accusing “the Jews and the Marxists” of fashioning the big lie by blaming the loss of WWI on General Ludendorff, who later became a fervent Nazi and the author of the “Total War” concept. So if you create a parallel in this context, the OP has put herself in the role of Hitler and likened the MDA to the Jews. What kind of sense does that make?

    • I’m pretty sure the pro-gun community has made any number of gun-safety videos, they just don’t have the major news outlets cheerleading for them. And again, they don’t usually make blanket statements like all teens need to be denied access to guns, period, and all guns need to be stored unloaded, trigger-locked, and safe-locked with the ammo similarly locked up elsewhere. but ‘ll grant you, this one is a lot more superficially even-handed and a lot less patently idiotic than anything else I’ve seen from the grabbers lately. It’s hard to argue with that “model good behavior” part, too. And I thought the “big lie” reference was a bit strained, myself. I don’t see trying to wrap up some overt gun-control statements in a cloud of who-could-disagree safety messages as the kind of brazen, over-the-top, dare-you-to-disbelieve lie that I think Hitler was discussing.

      • What about depicting the NRA as a corporate monolith, and blaming their members for the gang violence epidemic? If referring to teenage gangbangers as “child victims of gun violence” isn’t a “big lie,” what is?

        • It’s a lie, for sure, but it does not fit the historical context of the Nazi “big lie” accusation. Nothing in this argument is being used as a pretext for widespread genocide.

        • ” Nothing in this argument is being used as a pretext for widespread genocide.”

          How can you be so sure of that?

          Let’s explore the path they want us on for a moment. Let’s assume the anti’s get their goal of Civilian Disarmament. What, exactly, do you think the end-game of that scenario is?

          Put another way…what do you think were the crucial initial steps to the Final Solution? Hint: disarming the populace was a big one.

          Historically, disarming the population is a key first step to all manners of problems. Arms in the hands of the ‘ordinary people’ has long been the only means of lessening corruption/exploitation.

          For example, after the Assize of Arms of 1252, all peasants were to be armed and trained with bow (smacks a little of our 2A, eh?). This turned out to be a key factor later in the Peasant’s Revolt.

          This video is not about ‘safety.’ NOTHING the anti’s come out with regarding guns is about ‘safety.’ It’s about “control” and totalitarian, top-down-from-the-State control at that.

      • I agree with this:
        “this one is a lot more superficially even-handed and a lot less patently idiotic than anything else I’ve seen from the grabbers lately. It’s hard to argue with that “model good behavior” part, too.”

        Even-handed and less patently idiotic is a very accurate assessment of this; I was prepared to slam the video before watching it, but I can’t actually do that based on the content and presentation.

        Of course, saying this specific video is less patently idiotic than most of their lies is, what…damning with faint praise?

    • I’m fairly certain von Clausewitz was the first to put forth the concept of Total War.

  21. Here’s the part where they try to gain some legitimacy. MDA couldn’t win the short game, they’re in it for the long game now. Never forget who they are.

  22. I’m pretty sure MDA mothers are more likely to lose a child to a hot car, getting a skinny carnal latte at Starbucks…

  23. Guns are designed to kill. The risks are implicit. Rather than “start a conversation” I recommend using discretion.

  24. Gun owners are pretty much all capable of taking sufficient safety measures, obviously. Some won’t take the trouble, and no amount of legislation will ever change that.

    Few people would think it a good idea to take a hair dryer into the shower, let alone turn it on then… but the very few who might actually do so are simply not likely to read the warning label. I suspect these videos are in the same category.

  25. I find it amusing that it only has a little over 3,000 views and most of those are probably pro gun folk clicking to see what MDA is up to this time.

  26. I applaud anyone who seeks to educate others with facts. In this case the video provides what appears to be plausible information along with corresponding suggestions. While I may or may not believe their suggestions are wise, they are free to suggest. As long as they are not advocating to infringe on our rights or spewing lies, I am fine with their outreach.

    I do take exception to their comment that, “Firearms are the most lethal method for suicide attempts, resulting in death 85% of the time.” Jumping off of a building or cliff from 100 feet or higher results in death 100% of the time … as does driving a car at 100 mph into the concrete pillars of a highway overpass.

    At any rate I am fine with encouraging adults to take appropriate measures to secure their firearms from children … along with encouraging adults to take appropriate measures to secure other sources of harm from children.

  27. If the MOMs wanted to really do something productive they would spend some time with their families as I am sure all that time away from home campaigning against guns is making for some lonely husbands and wandering eyes and that not even saying what is happening to those poor children growing up without their MOM being around.

  28. I have no problem with advocating for safe storage and handling of guns. I don’t leave loaded guns lying around the house. If you want a loaded gun at the ready while you’re at home (lots of good reason for this), then strap on a holster and you’re good to go.

    • Yes; maybe she has been misled on the issue of gun rights though and just needs some facts cleared up. She strikes me as a pragmatic person, so I don’t know if she is really informed about this particular issue if she is a member of MDA.

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