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.