A frenemy sent a link to this public service announcement. The National Crime Prevention Council (of the McGruff the Crime Dog fame) produced it. My humble correspondent wants to know if TTAG’s Armed Intelligentisa find the PSA acceptable. Well do ya, punk? Thumbs up or thumbs down on this PSA and why? [NB: the NCPC produced a second ad which I find much more acceptable. I’ll post that bad boy later today as QOTD II.]
It was okay, but still thumbs down. They ask us to lock them up to make them “feel safer”. I disagree with that line. Also, what constitutes “not using them the firearms)”. Also, why should I lock up my guns? Not one of the situations they are describing would be stopped with that. I feel Eddie the Eagle “Don’t touch the firearms” would help more in some of them. The rest were describing criminal usage. I can’t stop that.
+1 I agree, entirely. Further, the subtext of this public serviced announcement is typical anti-gun screed: “If you absolutely must have one of these dangerous, icky, scary, things then for heaven’s sake keep it locked away!” I doubt you’d ever see this organization produce a PSA encouraging kids to learn about gun-safety. Sorry, I ain’t buyn’. . .
“If you lock up your guns, I’ll feel safer when playing outside!” has me going:
https://i.imgflip.com/jwsdy.jpg
I have a feeling they weren’t approaching this from the standpoint of a child accessing a firearm and having an accident. Rather from the don’t let a criminal steal your gun. While I don’t have to worry about children accessing any firearm I left unattended in my home there is a good chance that a thief might target my home for a burglary looking specifically to steal a firearm (thank you so very much for that “Journal News”). Anyway, while I shouldn’t be in that situation, I am and all gun owners are to some extent. The last thing I want is some low life stealing on my my guns and using it to commit some other crime. I’d feel terrible if that were to happen. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have ready access to a firearm when I’m home. Nor should I be forced to lock anything up through government intervention. It’s my choice, my responsibility, and my prerogative.
This.
I converse openly and regularly with friends who don’t share my love for guns. They have asked me point blank: “When you aren’t using your gun, do you lock it up?” To which I answer, “You bet I do. I have very curious children in my house, and my community has burglaries.”
If you aren’t using your gun or you don’t have it on your person, lock it up. If everyone who owns a gun did this simple thing, we would eradicate most of the “accidental” shootings and cut off the supply of stolen guns.
We have to get our shit together, or someone will do it for (or to) us.
I do not disagree with the message–I think that if you aren’t using it, especially if you have young children in the house, that you should store your weapons responsibly. The delivery of the message, however, I’m not crazy about. It smacks too much of the “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!” hysteria I’ve come to loathe from the anti-gun Left.
Also, it’s not “either teach your children responsible firearms handling and safety OR lock them up” it’s “teach your children responsible firearms handling and safety AND lock them up”. The guns, not the kids. Don’t lock up your kids.
Locking up the kids would do more good than locking up firearms for overall reductions in accident/death/crime.
Abort’em all for a safer, cleaner, quieter, more peaceful world.
Some kids need a retroactive abortion…
🙂
JimR pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Didn’t even watch the PSA, but this reaction is exactly what I expected Mine to be. I also expected and will tolerate some poor delivery; I don’t mind the message on its face. It’s a sensible suggestion, generically, though the degree to which it applies depends on individual situations. I much prefer well-intentioned advice that may help some people to legal mandates that will hurt some people.
Before answering, I would like to be able to view the PSAs this organization has produced, regarding “Lock up your swimming pools and bath tubs“, “Lock up your household chemicals“, “Lock up your stairs“, “Lock up your cars“, “Lock up your doctors“, and all other topics of risks that are far more fatal to children.
Lock up your daughter, lock up your wife, lock up your back door, run for your life…
nice one…that comment was loaded with TNT
Meh, I could go either way on that comment… I guess you could say I’m AC/DC about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnaVoTfkqa8
Hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ wife, and hide yo’ husbands, too…
Edit: Beat me to it!
Well, it’s a “crime prevention” outfit, not a “safety” outfit, and this is geared, I expect, as a “prevent gun theft” ad. And in fairness, McGruff & Co. have done various different kinds of “crime prevention” PSAs, like locking up your car-type stuff, over the years.
What does “do it for the children” have to do with locking up guns to prevent crime?
Absolutely nothing. That is just the gun grabbers way of thinking.
With that said, apart from the do it for the children slant, I agree with the message. Unused firearms should be stored securely. Mainly to help prevent theft. However, I carry EVERYWHERE I can, so I consider that “in use.” That includes home carry and even toilet carry. Haven’t figured out that shower carry yet though. But I have a vocal big dog, sooo I have a good chance of advance notice.
So criminals won’t steal a gun and use it in a drive-by in which a stray bullet kills a child (who’s playing in the park or walking home from school.) It’s not like such a thing has never happened. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I like the ad or that I recommend it. I don’t care for this “for the children” crap as if anybody who doesn’t agree hates children, or as if children are the only lives that matter. I’m just saying that the overall message, as I see it, is not objectionable.
I give this two thumbs down. I find this PSA to be almost as manipulative as that infamous 1970 Dixie Cup commercial where a little boy breaks a glass after brushing his teeth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0lL0z_N8mY
yeah…no.
For me it’s the false idea that safe storage (which I’m an advocate of) will make kids safer playing outside or prevent school shootings. That just misses the boat.
Also I tend to buy the argument that if you have to attempt to emotionally manipulate me, then whatever you’re selling I ain’t buying.
Oh gee, I feel so guilty. I don’t have any kids, and after seeing this I am never going to allow anyone under the age of 30 in my house – for the children! I am sure a safely locked-up gun would have prevented the mass murder in the Newtown school, right? Oh wait, she did lock up her guns, but her insane son killed her and stole them. I have a better idea – teach your kids gun safety and moral values.
And let me add that it really pisses me off when these dweebs try to make me feel responsible for the last 50 years of deliberate leftist destruction of the moral values we used to share in America.
Exactly! These morons don’t get the big picture. The gun owners that love to shoot and take pride in protecting their home and family aren’t the ones that threaten peace. We are among the safest group of people when you look at recreation and protection. How many kids were hurt or killed while riding on an ATV last year? How many kids were killed from car wrecks(not accidents because that skirts fault)?
It is not safely locked up if a mentally disturbed teen can get to it.
Anyone can get into anything if they try hard enough. You have a key? They’ll kill you to get to it. Passcode kept on your computer? They’ll find it. They aren’t dogs, they think and get what they want.
You’ve killed Mom and still can’t get her guns? Dial 911 and when the cop arrives, kill him and take HIS guns, then murder schoolkids, what is the difference?
Bad psa, in my opinion. It relies on an emotional appeal versus a logical argument. I always despise the “I feel safer” emotional appeal because, to be quite honest, I don’t care how you feel when it comes to the safety of my family. And going back to logic versus emotion… my logic is that it does me no good locked up if someone breaks into my home in the middle of the night.
Exactly…”I feel safer when I play outside” when guns are locked up inside?
Does not compute…
Response should clearly be “so pretend guns are all locked up, now, if you see one it is just a toy, and go ahead and feel all better, we have fixed the problem, right?”
I give it a thumbs down. The objections I have are that they are falsely equating safety with perceptions of safety. The PSA is a blatant use of propaganda to sway through emotions. The ends rationalize the means.
The biggest objection is that they have spent public money on false propaganda message, when the money could have been spent on really doing something positive that promotes public interests, not just perceptions of safety, or worse, the groundwork to corrupt public perceptions.
For myself, if I’m carrying my gun for SD purposes, I’m “using it”. And leaving a gun where “just anyone” can get it does strike me as just being irresponsible (personally, it also strikes me as being pretty rare). Based on those concepts, I don’t find the ad objectionable. If that counts as a “thumbs up” so be it.
Agree. It’s not perfect and sure it’s heavy handed in the use of the pleading children, but I don’t find the message as stated objectionable in fact it’s good advice.
Its half right. Doesn’t urge people to show kids how to handle guns safely or what to do if they come upon one.
I don’t have any objection to it. I would have reacted better to a different approach, but I believe in gun storage safety and I did not seen any hint of infringing language in it. I do think gun storage is an important issue, although I am not for any restrictive legislation regarding it, so that leaves public education. I think the NRA should be doing PSAs like this.
IMO you’re kind of missing the point. PSA’s aren’t just for the obviously targeted audience. The people who have an unreasonable fear of firearms see PSA’s too. Once convinced that locking up firearms is the “reasonable and responsible” thing to do, legislation will follow with little opposition. Then locking up your firearms won’t be an option; it will be compulsory – unless you choose to violate a new law OR get rid of your firearms. Gun safes aren’t cheap and good ones even less so.
As another poster mentioned, locking up firearms is not the silver bullet (no pun intended) solution for keeping firearms out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.
Why the drama? The message is still that guns are an unnecessary threat to society and you are responsible for all the “tragedies” inventoried with damp eyes.
It’s victim blaming. Someone commits theft against me but because I decided not to secure my knives I am to blame for the stabbing spree they go on? Oh wait….
But seriously no this is literally victim blaming as if it is the theft victim’s fault they were robbed. I thought the left hated victim blaming? I guess only when they can push an agenda. Most of those kids can safely handle firearms anyway.
It’s acceptable in the sense that everyone has the right to free speech, but it’s misleading when it creates the impression that any significant number of shootings involve a legally owned gun that was carelessly allowed into the wrong hands. Almost all crime guns circulate on the black market, and almost all legally owned guns are never used to shoot anyone.
It’s playing the game that any gun stolen from its rightful owner was “allowed” to find its way to criminal hands. Eventually, given adequate registration, that when your stolen gun is used in a crime, *you* will be prosecuted for that crime, since it is your fault, one way or the other. Thus making gun ownership too dangerous for most people, “my job here is done!”.
I think it is wasted money. The people who would be influenced and would listen to this drivel aren’t where there is a problem.
A $ (tax) blown that supports the lifestyle of libtards in the PR/media business is never wasted.
Sideways thumb.
Why not say something about teaching your children?
“Why not say something about teaching your children?”
We can’t have that!
The next thing you know, the public will start to believe that guns aren’t sinister, evil things that ‘just go off’ all by themselves.
Even worse, the public may start to believe they have a ‘right’ (whatever they think that means) to own those things that only the military and police should have access to.
(Cripes, that much sarcasm flat wore me out… I need a nap…)
Mmmm… thumbs down, for me. No question, gun owners need to be vigilant & responsible. But – as others have already pointed out, this PSA hits emotional buttons that smack of the typical gun control groups, and that’s not even the worst part about it. As Chip says, where are the PSA’s on the things that literally kill 10, 15, even 20 or 30 or 50 times as many people each year – accidental poisonings (around 33,000), driving accidents (around 39,000), falling down (~12,000)? Just those three categories alone = over 80,000 accidental deaths, but ~600 from firearms is more important?
Then they also drift into implying that if we lock up our guns, there will be less crime. Maybe, but it is really hard to say if it would be statistically significant. Bad guys gonna find a way. When we find some way of changing the culture of criminals, then we’ll see more drops in crime. But aren’t violent crimes down? A lot? (I know they are, it’s rhetorical.)
Anyway, sorry to ramble. Thumbs down from me. I’d rather see one about safe driving or keeping poison household chemicals stored safely.
Total emotions. I wonder if any of those kids has even had an opportunity to learn about guns. If they had they would not be so easily convinced to recite the lines fed to them.
Totally overlooks any sports related opportunities. Personal gratification of achievement through competing with others regardless of physical ability.
Well, it does say “when you aren’t using it”. When my kids did shooting with the 4-H club the guns that belonged to the club were kept at the instructor’s house and I expect he kept them locked up when they weren’t being used.
Thumbs down, but not way, way down. Keeping people from getting access to your firearms (and naturally lots and lots of other potentially dangerous items) is just good citizenship. It is responsible. If it were the law, I’d probably disobey it out of rank stubbornness, but that’s just me. I have a gun safe and “all” of my guns are safely secured (at least all of them I want anyone to know about, but then my kids are grown).
While the beginning of the message works for me (prevent unwanted access to your guns…) It’s the examples that follow that turn this into a down vote as the risk posed in each of the examples (walking or playing outside, going to school, etc.) are so vastly small from a stolen gun that it crosses the line into a paranoid, excessively emotional screed.
It’s a pretty simple message: XXX deaths and injuries of children each year are caused by an unwanted access to firearms (or XXX crimes per year used firearms stolen from a legal gun owner)…. let’s work together to secure our guns. This would ESPECIALLY work for me if it was part of an overall safety campaign around the other – and significantly more profound – risks the little ones face.
Thumb sideways. Safe storage is a good idea. Make the jump to government mandated safe storage (which PSA is closely following this one) is not only a bad idea, but unconstitutional.
Tough question. I don’t like the similarity between this spot and the “Enough” types. All the emotional drama to support their ideas of gun safety. Sure it hurts us all to read about another kid shoots someone while playing with a gun, but there is no one size fits all solution. And though each one of these incidents is tragic and heart wrenching, we really should put it all into perspective. With an estimated 80,000,000 households with guns and a super high end of say 100 kids with guns incidents per year that represents 0.000125% of gun households. This doesn’t seem like it’s anywhere near the top for kid killers.
Thumbs down.
This is just FUD. Rather than putting out information about what individuals, even those that chose not to or are unable to exercise 2A rights, can to to make themselves safer, or feel safer, they push the narrative that making them feel safer is someone elses responsibility.
+1
Think the message is just fine BUT there should also be a mention of “teach you children about responsible firearms safety via the “Eddie Eagle” program” (or similar) in case someone DOESN’T lock theirs up.
That’ll never happen because it doesn’t fit the libtard/gun control narrative. Common sense isn’t their strong suit.
My guns are locked up. I have 2 locks on my front door and all my windows are locked.
It’s an appeal to emotion, devoid of meaningful content. Education is the key, as any safety professional knows.
I do not have a problem with this.
Me neither.
Kinda sounds like Richard Thomas got some bass in his voice.
I don’t give a rat’s rear end about kids or any one else “feeling safe” Parents it’s your responsibility to teach your children to think before acting – believe me, it will come in real handy when they grown up.
BTW: I’m a grown a** woman and don’t need PSA’s to tell how to secure my weapons. Already done, except EDC which is on me or within arms reach. Lock em up when not home cause don’t want them stolen
Even locking your firearms in a safe when away from home may not do much good. From what I can gather, a thief with a wedge, sledgehammer, and crowbar can access many gun safes in less than 5 minutes. I imagine almost every thief carries a crowbar. As for a sledgehammer and wedge? I suppose that depends on whether or not they know that you have a safe because carrying around all three would be a hassle … and a low-level thief wouldn’t know where to get a steel wedge.
A safe will certainly secure your firearms from a “smash and grab” thief and there is probably some value in that. On the other hand hiding your firearm in a strange location could be even more effective: a thief cannot steal something if they don’t know it is there. On the other side of the coin, a child will never access a firearm in a substantial gun safe … but they could stumble across its strange hidden location.
There is a potential down side no matter what you do — short of spending several thousand dollars on some super fantastic secure storage system.
“Even locking your firearms in a safe when away from home may not do much good.” Absolutely correct. Long ago I needed a safe and it was out-of-the-question that it ever be successfully breached. I bought the state-of-the-art and it cost a fortune. The guy who sold it to me explained that he formerly manufactured safes for the US Postal Service. US safes are produced to meet a UL specification; e.g., 30 minutes; enough time for the police to respond to an alarm.
A gun owner in the market for a safe needs to shop according to a chosen specification: children; casual burglar; determined burglar; with/with-out alarm; police response time; etc. No matter how formidable the safe LOOKS, it is NOT as burglar-resistant as it appears.
It’s a great idea! We should lock up criminals too! Oh wait maybe that one doesn’t work. Well maybe we just keep our guns locked up until we know we will encounter a bad guy… wait maybe that doesn’t work either.
Overall, thumbs down.
The base message is fine. Every responsible firearms owner knows that stored weapons should be properly secured.
My problem with the ad is its a gun control message (“all guns are dangerous and evil”) tarted up as a PSA. The dead giveaway is the heavy handed faux drama coupled with the tiresome “it’s for the children” overlay.
If these people were sincere they would be promoting the idea of tax credits for people who buy gun safes but they’re not so they’re not.
I’m 100% in favor of people storing guns in a responsible manner but I am also 100% opposed to an legislation trying to mandate this.
Agitprop.
I also really don’t care about your kids.
Well the central idea is valid. No one is going to legibly argue against proper storage of ANYTHING dangerous, let along guns. Problem is is by the vary lines used in this we know that these people don’t know a damn thing about actual gun safety.
It dances around the real reason, and the real message, which is “lock up your guns so some thug won’t steal it, fire it at a gang rival and kill some kid in the process.” That’s where the “I’ll feel safer playing outside” line comes in.
The people who really need to hear this message will ignore it, which is why we have a problem with stolen guns in the first place.
Don’t be a dumba$$ and get people killed is a line we could all get behind, because it’s both simple, common sense and morality, but the desperate-plea from a child tactic in constant use by folks like this get on my last good nerve. You are (and darned well ought to be) liable for every bullet that comes out of your gun, but you aren’t liable for the neighbor girl’s feelings. If that little girl came up to me, I’d invite her and her mom to go shooting with me. No kidding.
…the teacher’s tear at 0:49 was oh-so-touching.
My thumb is not the digit I’m currently using to rate this PSA.
Meh. Thumbs sideways.
I generally agree with the message, but I’d bet there is no science behind it and I’d double down that most true accidents don’t happen because unused guns were not locked up (per se). Just as most auto accidents happen within a short distance from your house, I’d bet most accidents happen because some knuckle head was gizmoing their gun, showing it off, or cleaning it, and forgot to check the chamber. Or, they had it out because they were about to go somewhere.
If these were bathtubs, the message would be “please don’t store water in your bathtub when you are not using it for a long time, to prevent drownings.” No, accidents happen when you plan to use it, or are using it, and get distracted.
Distracted driving, distracted bathing, distracted swimming, and distracted gun gizmoing are all dangerous to children.
Speaking of water, there are like 5x more child drownings in the US. Where is the PSA about bathtub and pool locks?
Welp, you asked for it, so here’s the bathtub one, complete w/rubber ducky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLSJULw4wS0
i didn’t see any problems with it what so ever.
Since they’re big government statists, I wouldn’t want them to take out the “FEEL safer,” since it’s a clear identifier, like a red breast on a Robin. You can always count on liberals to do the things that make them FEEL more loving, compassionate, safer, etc., without any regard to whether something like real safety has actually been achieved, less actual crime will occur, or less innocent people will be harmed. Sing it with ’em, ev-ree-bah-dee: Feeeee-lings, whoa, whoa, whoa, feeeeee-lings….
I fully support the idea of encouraging people to secure firearms which are laying around — especially when children are or could be on-site.
Having said that, I do not support their implied messaging.
I was surprised and happy to see this ad because it reflected, without saying so, that guns are very popular and are kept by “normal” people for “normal” reasons. This is really a different take on gun ownership than we see from the usual gang of gunhaters. In their ads, guns are demonized and owners are shown to be abnormal. The PSA didn’t do that.
Besides, even the NRA advises owners to secure their firearms when not in use. So while I can nitpick the PSA, and I have, I think that the ad was acceptible.
I’m pretty much on the same wavelength on it.
The vibe I got from it was politically neutral.
The more money they spend on that is less money they can spend on the really nefarious propaganda.
If the goal is to appeal to emotion, provide no useful information and present something mediocre I find it acceptable. They claim to want guns stored safely and make no attempt to define what that is. There is a good reason for that. Even those that consider themselves part of the “we” of gun owners don’t agree on a standard. So here is a message to please do something we can’t even attempt to define so that some people will feel (but not actually be significantly) safer.
You want yourself and your loved ones to be significantly safer you can start by never getting in another motor vehicle or you can just live your life and realize life is a terminal condition and comes with fatal risks along the way.
From the standpoint of a firearms enthusiast it feels condescending and manipulative, of course. Still it’s refreshing to see some form of responsible gun ownership even depicted in a PSA at a time when gun ownership is pervasively spun as the lunacy of paranoid, racist buffoons.
Seems to me like they are trying to sell their anti-gun message in a way that least offends gun-rights supporters. So, your question is: Do PotG want to endorse this message. No, thank you.
When anyone is interested in gun-safety is willing to produce a gun-safety ad with a gun-positive background theme, I’ll sign-up. To date, the Anti’s have worked really hard to burn all their bridges with gun owners and individual rights. They can’t expect to rebuild those bridges by messages such as this one which still tries to convey an anti-gun background.
That said, I think we can always look for ways to store our guns more safely. Nevertheless, there is no perfect solution.
First thing I’d pursue is to minimize gun-free zones so we don’t have to leave our guns locked in cars. When I leave my house knowing I’m going to a GFZ, I won’t leave my gun on my nightstand (vs. locking it up).
Second, we should strive to keep our handguns locked in STRONG steel safes bolted to the floor/wall. Whether stolen long guns are used in crimes needs to be proven statistically.
Third, government forcing solutions are counter-productive. The government’s solution will tend to the lowest-common-denominator; locks and boxes that won’t stand up to a determined burglar or child. There is no entirely secure safe; only incrementally better safes. To the extent that theft or unauthorized access is a problem, we will do a better job solving it voluntarily.
Finally, I question whether there are any Anti’s who are sincere about gun safety. If they were concerned with gun suicide they should be working on solving the problem of suicide regardless of means. If they were concerned with gun accidents they should be working on solving the problem of accidents regardless of means. If they were concerned with homicide they should be working on the demographics and underlying circumstances of perpetrators and victims of homicide. I see no evidence of any of the foregoing. The Anti’s seem to be concentrating on law-abiding peaceful gun owners and users. None of their efforts seem to be aimed at enforcing existing laws prohibiting felons being in possession.
Meh, it’s ok. I think it subliminally takes an anti-gun slant, but I can get behind locking up some guns. But, I’ve been raising kids that are taught to respect firearms and to leave them alone. With age they’ll gain more responsibility.
I didn’t see a problem with it. “Lock your gun up when not using it”, I don’t understand why that’s an obstructive idea. My firearm holstered on me is in use, the firearm I leave on the nightstand while I’m not home, id consider not being used. Locking up firearms that you don’t maintain control over, is good practice.
I’d feel safer if leftists all locked themselves up and threw away the key. Does that make it a legitimate argument since it’s a feeling?
For what it’s worth, I have no problem with these people making some kind of appeal. It’s a free country (despite your best efforts to the contrary). It’s when they start trying to legislate their will into law that they transition from Americans using their 1st Amendment rights to fascists trying to oppress with an iron fist.
Yawn. The “for the children” plea is a dry empty well for me.
Originated by the leftists for every freeking “crisis of the moment” and most of them were not a crisis.
Your neighbors, family and friends are counting on you….to be their backup. There fixed it for ya.
Sucked. As someone posted above: almost all emotion “for the childrenz”.
If a person already has to break the law to be on my property, then I am not responsible that he breaks yet another and steals from me.
I cannot remotely afford anything approaching a real safe (and most “gun safes” are, frankly, way overpriced piece of junk that are not real safes). Unless you got a great deal, or spent thousands on one, you don’t have something that would slow down a criminal by that much time. I shouldn’t have to be able to afford a $3000 safe to have a gun for my own use.
FWIW, CA’s safe storage law includes as one exception, among many, if the criminal/kid gained access via unlawful entry onto your property. Even CA won’t blame you if that is how it went down.
I have a Fort Knox pistol box. That makes it relatively secure with kids. But a criminal can just grab the whole box!
My (ethical) responsibility with regard to safe storage extends to those under my charge/roof etc. And the primary deterrent there is education. It does not extend to criminals unless I invite them to live with me.
Agreed. Even with a decent safe, you’ll still have to bolt it to the ground or otherwise secure the safe itself. It is not at all unheard of for burglars to work in teams of three, four or more men, and either just carry the unsecured safe out, or wheel it out on a mover’s dolly.
It’s over the top. I give it two thumbs down, and one middle finger up.
It conflates a great many gun-related injuries and incidents and drops them all at the doorstep of gun owners who supposedly didn’t secure their firearms. That completely ignores the facts of how a great many of these events actually happen. Many spree shooters, for example, purchased their firearms legally. Even the Sandy Hook killer, who did indeed steal the firearms he used, nevertheless would have had access to those guns, anyway, as he and his mother went shooting together.
Other firearm thefts take place in vehicles, which are difficult to secure and which often contain a firearm only because some law prohibits its owner from taking it inside with him/her. On firearm accidents, that’s really more your responsibility as a parent to educate your children on firearm safety, at least at the Eddie Eagle level. For children too young to grasp that message, who obtain a firearm and cause an injury, OK, I’ll give you that. Those cases are rare and greatly outnumbered by other causes of accidental death among those age groups.
Securing your firearms is a good idea, to be sure, but this ad, with its plaintive tone and pleading eyes, intentionally and recklessly places all blame on supposedly irresponsible gun owners and their oh so evil guns. In so doing it willfully ignores the reality of the overwhelming majority of firearms-related violence: a person chose to commit lethal violence. That isn’t instantly banished from society just because someone slaps a trigger lock on their Glock, and the deceitful producers of this disingenuous ad know that damn well.
The end result is to have people lock up guns they are not using. Fine, I agree with that. The means however are somewhat distorted. If you showed this to kids the same age as those depicted, they would give you a blank stare. This is supposed to evoke emotions. Face it, speaking in a straight forward, educational style format is going to be largely ignored and be boring. Locking up guns is clearly a step in a positive direction as opposed to gun bans and painting lawful, law abiding gun owners in a negative light.
We’ve seen MUCH worse from anti-gun types.
As is, this ad is fine by me. It’s not saying we shouldn’t have guns, and it’s not calling us names, or anything of the sort.
It’s simply asking that guns be locked up when we’re not attending to them. Sure, it’s an emotional appeal instead of logical one, but the request is valid.
Well the insult in my mind is that it implicitly holds people responsible for the evils of others.
“Don’t lock up your gun? You’re a baby murderer”
The problem is that Everytown, MDA, The Brady Bunch, Gabby et al. are trying to mimic this message when their ulterior motives is to ban everything. Plus, accidental shootings have been on the decline due to efforts of other organizations over the past 40+ years. These ads probably benefit the Gun Ban Lobby more than anyone else.
Agreed. It’s lovely to say that “one ____ is one too many”; however, we must be aware of the phenomena of ascemtotpically approaching zero. In a universe of a very large number of actors (e.g., 317 million population of the US) we are doomed to experience an absolute number of tragic incidents that strikes us as “too-many”. E.g., with so many passengers traveling on so many commercial airline flights we are going to experience tragic crashes.
We should always be alert to the opportunity to reduce statistically-rare tragedies, whether gun accidents or plane crashes. That alertness must be conscious of the phenomena of diminishing returns and wrongly-targeted solutions.
If progress is to be achieved (when ascemtotpically approaching zero) we need to become increasingly conscious of the DETAILS of the REAL vulnerabilities that cause the residual tragedies. E.g., perhaps:
– gun accidents are mostly associated with cases of felons-in-posession; or,
– plane crashes are mostly associated with pilot-error.
(Merely by way of illustration.) If so, then:
– hunter-safety classes wouldn’t do much to reduce gun accidents;
– increasing the redundancy of flight-control mechanisms wouldn’t prevent planes from crashing.
CDC reports of X00 gun accidents per year don’t tell us whether these tragedies occur in the inner-city or the forests/fields; nor do they guide our efforts toward safety training vs. enforcing felon-in-posession. If we understood the problem of gun accidents we might be inspired to creative solutions; e.g., gun-safety training for thugs!
This PSA seems premature in the absence of detailed information on the source of accidents or stolen guns.
PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT. Okay this is terrible. Actually terrible.
Please bury this one. Forever. Maybe just keep the last 15 seconds.
I think the message is fine. When my guns are not being used, they are locked up.
Comments are closed.