Mark Schreiber and son at the NRA convention (courtesy thinkprogress.com)

“During a [Rob Pincus] seminar on ‘home defense concepts’ at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Louisville, an instructor encouraged gun owners to store firearms in their children’s bedrooms,” thinkprogress.com. “‘Why would you consider staging a firearm inside a child’s room?’ he told the few hundred NRA members in attendance. ‘It’s the first place I’m going to go! As I’ve said…many times, if your kid is going to break into the safe just because it’s in their room, you have a parenting issue, not a home defense issue. Why would you consider staging a firearm inside a child’s room? It’s the first place I’m going to go!'” Let’s think about this . . .

Pincus [not shown] is right, of course. When you’re defending your home from an invader you either have to go on offense (i.e. find the bad guy and eliminate the threat) or assume a defensive position.

For obvious reasons, going out and “clearing your house” is the worse of the two options. When you’re waiting for the cops in a defensive position, and generally speaking, you want your children behind you. So go to their room(s), gather the friendlies, stake out a defensive position and wait for the cavalry.

The question: why not keep your gun with you and then go to your kids’ room? There are a lot of possible answers.

A long gun is your best defense. Securing and running from room-to-room with a long gun isn’t easy — and you want to be protecting your children as soon as possible. You should but you might not home carry. If you have a gun secured in your child’s room, that saves you a lot of go-get-it-first time in a life-or-death situation.

Secured. Yes, there is that. But not as much in the Pincus canon to please ThinkProgress.

A woman toward the front raised her hand and discussed her duty to “ensure” that unauthorized people don’t get their hands on her firearms. Pincus immediately toned down her response.

“Ensure is a strong word,” he said. “So I’m going to say we have an obligation to try to prevent unauthorized access.” He added that hidden, instead of locked or secured, is a perfectly appropriate way to secure a gun.

Did he? Suspecting the writer of guilt of omission, at the least, I asked Mr. Pincus for clarification:

“If everyone in the house is authorized and trained to have access to the firearm in the case of an emergency, and your home’s perimeter is secure, then having a firearm in clandestine storage device, out of sight and hidden, is perfectly acceptable,” Mr. Pincus told TTAG.

“The advice to consider keeping a gun in a child’s room goes along with advice to keep the firearm in a secured container, just as you would if the firearm were stored anywhere else in a home with young children or other unauthorized people.”

Anyway, that was more than enough for ThinkProgress’ ironically named Kira Learner to pull the trigger on the usual bloody shirt waving (child size edition) and trot-out the ever-popular “a gun in your home is more likely to kill you dead than save your *ss” meme. And turn to the doyenne of disarmament for a killer quote (so to speak).

“If the NRA is really are a gun safety organization, they should be lobbying for stronger laws that will protect children,” Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, told ThinkProgress. “Instead, they are trying to promote and sell guns in a way that actually puts them in danger.”

The rest of the TP hit piece focuses on the “promotion” of guns to kids at the NRA convention, while harping on about unsecured weapons. Suffice it to say, the forces of civilian disarmament believe disarmament begins in the home. In some senses, they’re right. Which is why it will never happen.

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43 COMMENTS

  2. If the NRA is really are a gun safety organization, they should be lobbying for stronger laws that will protect childre

    The fact that you think it’s laws that keep children safe illustrates perfectly why it’s the NRA, and not any organ of the gun control lobby, that is the nation’s premier gun safety organization.

  3. Remember: Private pools kill more kids than unsecure guns. There is no constitutional right to a private pool, indeed building codes have existing in the US since before Lincoln was president and plenty of them already restrict building pools. All swimming can be done at a private pool with a lifeguard. There is actually real need to have a private pool

    Disarmament advocates, who remember are generally from upper class backgrounds and often have had private pools at some point, just can’t deal with the argument. Few of them are willing to attack their own property and if they do you can always call out their priorities.

  4. I am ambivalent about keeping and unsecured firearm in a child’s room before he can truly understand the four rules. I think you have live with a quick access safe. If you are serious about training your children it appropriate for a 13 year old’s room. As we have recently seen a 13 year old is old enough to save his and other family members asses.

    • No one is advocating keeping an unsecured gun in a child’s room . Here is the quote from the article:

      “The advice to consider keeping a gun in a child’s room goes along with advice to keep the firearm in a secured container, just as you would if the firearm were stored anywhere else in a home with young children or other unauthorized people.”

      • Pincus’s response to the question indicated hiding a gun might be ok.

        • Context is important… the “mistake” the original article made was to put the two separate pieces of information together:

          1. You might consider staging a gun in your kids room […in a quick access are or similarly secured.]

          and

          2. [if you have a secure home and all residents are authorized/trained for gun use…] then simply hiding a gun may be an appropriate choice.

          -RJP

        • Well, I shouldn’t be trying to elaborate on Robs reply, but keep reading tiidnva. Concealing a weapon was conditional: “If everyone in the house is authorized and trained to have access to the firearm in the case of an emergency, and your home’s perimeter is secure, then having a firearm in clandestine storage device, out of sight and hidden, is perfectly acceptable,” Mr. Pincus told TTAG.

          BTW Rob – heard your presentation that included this information at the Houston NRA meeting. Very impressive!

  5. I am sure the Liberals will have a field day with this.
    I would prefer having the guns in the parents bedroom in the case that the parents must fight to the kids bedrooms.
    On the other hand, if the kids are old or mature enough to utilize guns, having some of them stored in the kids room would be okay.
    As far as a safety think of the children subject goes, it really does not matter. The kids can get into the guns when the parents are not in their room.

  6. so a progressive operative was in the class? we need to tatoo a “p” on their forehead so we know who they are. 😉

  7. Reporter at the NRA convention? There is a simple question you ask. “Are you with X, Y or Z? Yes? No comment,” or a colorful metaphor of one’s choosing indicative of the same thing.

  8. This story came out at least a year ago, probably longer, which is simply proof that progressives never progress. In fact, they are proof that the 80’s band Devo was right… At least for some people.

    On the plus side, at the rate these progressives also want to ban speech, I suspect in a few short years, they’ll be reduced to grunts and farts.

  9. The anti-gun jihadis over at Rawstory got themselves worked into a nice froth over this as well…

  10. Hum . . . at first I thought no way. Then I remembered that all my kids sleep in my room where we have two secured guns. They can’t open them there so why would they be able to open them any where else. Once my kids are old enough I will have them take gun safety courses. I think I did my first at 10 years old.

    • Keep reading, Elizabeth. Concealing a weapon was conditional: “If everyone in the house is authorized and trained to have access to the firearm in the case of an emergency, and your home’s perimeter is secure, then having a firearm in clandestine storage device, out of sight and hidden, is perfectly acceptable,” Mr. Pincus told TTAG.

  11. The rest of the TP hit piece

    Which reminds me — I’m down to my last couple of rolls of TP and need to buy some more. Which is all that TP is good for.

    Ya gotta hand it to that group of libiots — they sure chose a perfect name.

  12. I believe I remember that Rob gave a similar seminar last year or the year before, and a similar liberal publication had a similarly silly reaction. Any reasonably intelligent 6 year old can crack a quick access safe. The room that the quick access safe is in is irrelevant. The kid is either responsible enough to be trusted to stay away from the firearm or he/she isn’t (the vast majority are fine). Security is a learned behavior that is enhanced by using proper tools, not guaranteed by them.

  13. Sometimes I think some of these “gun guys” are plants by the antis to make us look stupid. For example: “A long gun is your best defense. Securing and running from room-to-room with a long gun isn’t easy — and you want to be protecting your children as soon as possible. You should but you might not home carry. If you have a gun secured in your child’s room, that saves you a lot of go-get-it-first time in a life-or-death situation.”

    This makes us look really, really stupid. Anyone with any sense can see how ridiculously reaching this is… you don’t need to ‘secure and run room to room’ with a long gun, you aren’t a navy seal, just deal with it.

    • Um, I think this was the author’s point. Having a gun in the room you plan to run to (your child’s room) means that you don’t have to “navy seal” it through the house.

      That said, while I understand the logic, I’m not sure I’m at the place where I’d feel comfortable staging a gun in my childrens’s rooms. Of all of the bad things that are likely to happen to me, home invasion is just one thing that I fear less than dying in a commercial airline crash. And I don’t fear airline accidents at all.

  14. I tried to share my opinion at thinkprogress before and was banned. I was polite but strongly disagreed. They took down my posts as well.

  15. If the NRA is really are a gun safety organization, they should be lobbying for stronger laws that will protect children,” Shannon Watts

    “Laws”

    Please stay out of my life Shannon.

  16. Assuming the responsible adult(s) have guns in the master bedroom, there isn’t a huge need for guns in the kids’ room. Bump in the night, grab your bedside gun and go protect your kids.

    That said, in a month we’ll be moving out to the sticks and the gun safe will be in my oldest son’s bedroom because it has more storage space than the master. So there will be a “weapons cache” in the kid’s room.

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