These days, I’ve kind of felt like most anti-gun editorials are really more of a dog bites man story. But every once in a while, you’ll find one that dials up the stupid to 11, and you just can’t help but mock it. This is one of those stories:
As I flipped through the pages of this children’s activity book, my innocent curiosity quickly shifted to annoyance and then disgust. This was a book written for preschoolers to first graders with the intent of teaching kids not to play with the guns that they find through the hero-like advice of a large talking bird.
Yes, the abject horror of kids learning not to play with guns. What will that evil National Rifle Association think up next!? Don’t they know that a lot of kids are killed by guns every year? And that poor Trayvon, “with Skittles in one hand and iced tea in the other, was shot to death in 2012 via Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.” To borrow from Miguel a bit:
“We have to do something about all these kids who die from gun accidents.”
“Okay, we’ll create a program that teaches young children that guns are dangerous, and not to play with them.”
“That’s awful. You can’t do that. Think of all the kids that die from guns!”
Teaching kids via the medium of a giant talking bird – hmmmm Sesame Street anyone?
Hypocrisy much?
HUH?
Sesame Street – Big Bird, a giant yellow talking bird that teaches children. GOOD.
NRA – Eddie Eagle, a giant talking bird that teaches children about guns. BAD.
See the hypocrisy now?
The (hidden) alleged point of the article was that “we shouldn’t make the poor kids strain their brains by making them responsible for avoiding guns.” Except where does that end? Take away stoves and kitchen knives?
Yes. Sadly, taking away knives in the next step.
http://www.examiner.com/article/british-police-calling-for-ban-on-knives-first-guns-now-knives
I’ve shown my children the Eddie Eagle video, and they at least understood the message! They probably need to see the video again a few dozen more times, for the message to sink in, though.
And I still need to take them shooting. (Oh, the horror: show kids how guns work, and what they can do to a poor watermellon, and maybe they’ll be more inclined to leave them alone when they accidentally come across one!)
Nah, all this “teaching gun safety to kids” is paranoia, though, isn’t it? Because we can guarantee that our kids will NEVER come across a forgotten gun in an attic, or a gun in the bush thrown off by a criminal being chased by the police, or a gun under childless Uncle Bob’s bed in a shoebox…because Safe Storage Laws will GUARANTEE that all guns will automatically be found, and safely stored, IMMEDIATELY upon passage…
The author of that article must have done very little research or did I miss where the author mentions that the Eddie the Eagle program has been around since 1988.