Not sure how many people were able to watch HBO’s Real Sports last night, but there was an eye opening segment regarding kids and guns that was truly shocking. The main focus was on how the gun industry has placed its focus on marketing guns to children. This is not a typo or a misprint but, reality, and that reality is a result of the fact that we have become a nation of greedy corporations and their leaders.
I want to start out by saying I am a 5 year Veteran of the US Army and about two years of that was spent as an armorer handling weapons on nearly a daily basis. And, trust me; I felt leery of handing out machine guns to many of the adults in my unit let alone to kids. Also, I am not trying to say that no one should own a gun. What I am saying is many people in this nation have been wrapped up into believing in something that is little more than hype, and in the process have become blind to reality. Trust me the gestapo is not coming for your guns…maybe your porn…but not your guns.
The main purpose of this Real Sports segment shows how the gun industry and its lobbyists are affecting laws in our states by lowering the age for hunting in many states, so more and younger children can hunt and justify owning a gun. I think the big picture may be even more frightening though. After all, those gun makers and lobbyist sure are great supporters of our rights aren’t they?
In reality, they are nothing but marketing machines that have many Americans blindly following them. The marketing genius is actually two fold! They get parents to buy their kids cute little target style guns, and then, if the kids like it, they have customers for life. The gun industry also uses the Second Amendment and phrases about “my cold dead hands” to get us to believe, they are on our side in some sinister plot by the government and other assorted boogiemen to confiscate weapons. The reality is they are just like any other corporate entity in the world these days. They are after profits and shareholder approval. At the end of the day, they are only interested in their bank accounts, actually, your bank account and extracting as much out of it as possible.
In making this move to arm the youth of the Unites States, are our children safer in their schools? Are we safer as a nation? Have public shootings gone down? The gun industry will claim that the kids with these guns are trained and responsible. Children usually are pretty responsible when they are being watched, but what about when they are not? As we have seen too many times recently, much like an unsupervised gun industry, an unsupervised, armed child or teenager is going to do whatever the hell he wants.
Sleep well tonight…I know I won’t.
Sportmystic 
I love how so many anti-gun posts start with “I’m a gun guy and here are my credentials” Well, I spent 4 years in the Air Force and I gave out firearms to aircrews on F-4 Phantoms. So now we both established our street cred; what does it have to do with a blasted thing?
NOTHING. Not a jot or iota.
Trust me the gestapo is not coming for your guns…maybe your porn…but not your guns.
Except in New York after the SAFE act. Except in Connecticut after their Registration law just passed.
And let’s not forget that after every news making mass murder event (isn’t it funny how so many of the gang style mass murders don’t make the same headlines as a ‘school’ shooting?) there are calls for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment. Calls for “Assault Weapon Bans” – with confiscation (see Connecticut) And on and on.
In reality, they are nothing but marketing machines that have many Americans blindly following them.
And your support your repeated contention (logical fallacy called ‘proof by vigorous assertion’) with what evidence?
I mean surely corporations couldn’t be actually responding to consumer demand, right?
It couldn’t be due to families discovering and re-discovering the joys of hunting and shooting as a family?
It couldn’t be that the actual people are getting into the shooting sports after decades of gun control efforts have been shown to be dismal failures, right?
At the end of the day, they are only interested in their bank accounts, actually, your bank account and extracting as much out of it as possible.
So they are just like any other legal business subjected to local, state, and federal laws on marketing their product, right?
So do we have a failure of legislative process or perhaps they’ve found a loophole around advertising to children. Of course, there is that pesky issue of the legal age to purchase firearms (federal law, isn’t it?).
In making this move to arm the youth of the Unites States, are our children safer in their schools? Are we safer as a nation? Have public shootings gone down?
Generally about the same. Yes, And Yes.
Let’s see, decades ago when firearms weren’t kept out of schools; we had how many school shootings? But now we have zero tolerance policy, gun free zones, back pack searches, gun control laws out the wazooo — in the name of protecting children and what happens?
Kids are targeted where the killers know there are few if any firearms. Imagine that.
Are we safer as a nation; well yes. The general trend for decades (as concealed carry laws increased, Open Carry laws increased, as hunting ages have been reduced!) has been for fewer firearm related crimes, fewer firearm related deaths, fewer firearm related injuries.
Have public shootings gone down ? — Are you trying to link a company selling a single shot .22LR Rifle to a 10 year to shootings in public?
Ignoring the drug trade, ignoring the spread of illegal drugs out from the cities into suburban and rural areas, — based on what?
And you link to a Moms Demand Action hit piece that includes suicides on school property as a “school shooting”? Guess the ones that commit suicide using pills or hanging or any non-gun means aren’t worth saving eh? That includes crimes where neither victim or crimininal had only the most tenuous relation to the school as a “school shooting”?
Following a number of fights during an alumni basketball game, six shots were fired in the school parking lot from a jeep with several men inside. A unnamed 15-year-old girl was grazed by one of the bullets.
At least one shooter fired, potentially from a “considerable distance” away, wounding a man near McCain Hall on campus.
The school went into lockdown when a gun was fired at the playground. Two men were seen fleeing the scene. No students were on the playground at the time.
Because everyone knows nothing else exists around a school right?
Please tell me how the school shootings are related to the culture typified by the gun companies, by the hunting community.
Maybe, just maybe; a little more focus should be put on the thug culture predominate in so many areas. Maybe, just maybe a little more focus should be put on having people learn to resolve their domestic relationships without violence. Maybe we should talk about the mental health system in our country and how to improve it so we could reduce the number of suicides.
To try to blame the ‘gun violence’ problem on corporations is inane. Let’s blame Chrysler, GM, Chevy, etc for the national issue of people drinking and driving – after all traffic related fatalities kill more people than firearms.
Thank you for your service, and your comments.
3boxesofbs – I think you are missing the point. Did you watch the HBO Show?
csafarz – Agreed
No, I don’t have HBO.
Nor am I bringing up points expressed by HBO. I’m discussing the issues raised by Sportmystic.
So tell me; exactly what point am I missing?
“The main focus was on how the gun industry has placed its focus on marketing guns to children.”
So, did you know that the profits of the pharmaceutical industry is about 100X larger than the profits made by companies that cater to the personal firearms industry (vs. military – that is the distinction) in the U.S.?
It would seem that pharmaceutical industry is enormously more successful in marketing psychoactive drugs to kids (via doctors and parents) than some company that makes a .22 rifle sized to fit a kid.
Just a thought when you are trying to decide what amount of weight put on each potential vector of your outrage.
regards,
lwk
First off thank you both for your service.
I have to agree with 3 boxes here. Blaming the industry is like blaming Candy cigarette makers for a person smoking.
Let’s look at the parental guidance, or lack of, first. Come on I used to be in a rifle club at the high school on Wednesday evenings. I shoot NRA compition at the age of twelve. I was taught how to respect a weapon and how to properly use it.
When you say the gastopo is not going to take our guns, you better be sure about that. That is exactly what these registration laws are doing. I bet the same people who think this are the same people who think big brother does not listen into our phone conversations . Look what we are learning there.
I did not watch this HBO propaganda video, so I can not comment directly on it .