Mike “the Gun Guy” Weisser is at it again, helping huffingtonpost.com demonize guns, gun ownership and gun owners. This time he’s taking the National Shooting Sports Foundation to task for a completely benign gun safety video [above]. MTGGW claims it’s a thinly-veiled attempt to hook young consumers on cigarettes. I mean, firearms. He reckons that “the notion that guns might be potentially dangerous no matter how they are used” is “remarkably absent from the NSSF’s safety campaign.” Remarkable if you’re looking to make snide remarks about the NSSF’s safety campaign for no good reason . . .
The video goes on to showcase a few cutesy testimonials from what is now the standard racial and gender inclusive group of kids, who relate how their parents did or didn’t talk to them about guns. At which point Julie reappears and chants the usual refrain borrowed from the NRA’s phony safety program, Eddie Eagle, about not touching the gun — leaving the area — telling an adult, which is then followed by a new lyric for the older kids involving telling them never to touch a gun unless being supervised by an adult, never point a gun at anyone and always assume that every gun is loaded.
How, pray tell, is the NRA’s Eddie the Eagle safety program “phony”? I have no idea how many children have been saved from injury by the NRA’s “Stop, don’t touch, leave the area, tell an adult” message but I bet it’s a lot more than one. To borrow a page from the antis’ anti-gun agitprop playbook, if the Eddie the Eagle program saves even ONE child . . .
By the same token, kudos to the NSSF for acknowledging and promoting a message TTAG’s been advocating for years: muzzle discipline is The One Gun Safety Rule to Rule Them All. What’s wrong with that? Mike’s upset that the NSSF didn’t spend the majority of its message urging adults to lock-up their guns: “the only valid statement about gun safety in this entire message takes up 2 percent of the message.”
Wait. What? Is Mike “The Gun Guy” Weisser seriously suggesting that ‘lock up your guns’ is the ONLY valid statement about gun safety in a video that tells parents to tell youngsters to stop, don’t touch a gun, leave the area and tell an adult? A video that recommends that parents instruct their older children to never point a firearm at someone and assume all guns are loaded? Why would he write that?
Because Mike knows his audience. Short of surrendering their firearms to the proper authorities for destruction, gun control supporters would be happiest if all gun owners locked away their guns. Period. Out-of-sight. Out-of-mind. Truth be told, you’d have to be out of your mind to rely on a single”lock up your guns” safety measure. Children can breach security. Children and teens encounter guns “in the wild.” The only reliable gun safety protection lies between the ears of children, teens and, yes adults.
As I said at the beginning of this commentary, you’ll have to excuse me for sounding a bit sarcastic. But when the organization which represents the gun industry in every legislative and public discussion about gun safety can produce a public service announcement that is, to put it bluntly, an exercise in cheap hucksterism, then when it comes to safety the gun industry is inviting itself not to be taken very seriously.
As anodyne as it is, the NSSF safety video is anything but a “sales spiel.” By labeling it as such, Mike “The Gun Guy” Weisser is sealing his reputation as a left-leaning literary huckster, shamelessly pandering to prejudice without regard for facts, reason or the safety of our children. Another good reason no one should take him seriously.
F this guy. That’s all.
“Selling his reputation”? He doesn’t have a reputation to sell. He writes for HuffPo. It’s like expecting journalistic integrity from a Pravda columnist.
I’m all for securing one’s valuables when not in use. In Weiser’s case though, scratching for relevance, and a paycheck, he is.
I guess he’s learned not to unjustifiably bite the hands that feed him. Suppose that makes him a devoted anti, at least at some level.
Is TTAG a MTGG relay site?
Does anybody besides HuffPo publish this guy? If not, then I would suggest no serious person does take him seriously.
Go read the comments on HuffPo. He’s pretty much trashed by everybody. Nice to see they allow comments.
Locking up all guns is inherently unsafe, because if all guns are always locked up, they are not readily accessible when they are most needed.
Automobiles might be potentially dangerous no matter how they are used.
Household chemicals might be potentially dangerous no matter how they are used.
Swimming pools and bath tubs might be potentially dangerous no matter how they are used.
Hospitals might be potentially dangerous no matter how they are used.
(I could go on…)
He’s just mad that it’s a real gun safety video. Mike wants to keep the progressive newspeak alive where Gun Safety is really gun control.
Hey Mike, how many trigger locks or gun safes have your buddies at the CSGV or MDA handed out?
:crickets:
It’s funny that anyone thinks locks and safe would keep somebody who wanted what’s in it out.
It isn’t the vault door that keeps people out of the bank. It’s the armed guards and people arriving to the alarm with still more guns that keeps people out. Without all those guns to run interference no vault door is safe.
It’s a sad statement on our society that more people find The Daily Show and Huffington Post as credible news sources than not.
It’s a sad thing that many folks read and listen to media that reinforces what they already believe.
The Daily Show frequently exposes the same “ill &$$” govt doings that free thinking citizens are focused on.
Seeking the facts is healthy. Listening to differing opinions takes courage.
Being ready to change your opinion breeds safety. It allows for strategies to be flexible and responsive.
The Daily Show bills itself as a comedy show first. It also has a distinct bias. And, for your information, I read my news from dozens of sources, many with a bias both liberal and conservative.. I certainly don’t limit myself to one source
Mike the Gun Guy is a shameless troll who deliberately posts ignorant rants hoping to attract outraged gun rights advocates to his page and reward him with the small earnings every click generates. Since I refuse to visit his page, thanks to TTAG for doing the dirty work for me.
Maybe for the toddler years or if you have guests, but if the kid is 8 or so and you were a responsible parent/guardian they should be able to handle having access to firearms. Unless your kid is particularly immature, but as a parent you will know that.
I did read the article kind of fast but it seems to me he is promoting the ‘abstinence-only’ idea of gun ownership. Keep it locked up and don’t let anyone touch it ever. Can’t teach kids about it because then they might be interested, the might try out their new-found knowledge.
That’s a really good comparison. And it’s just as effective as the in school abstinence teachings.
How well did the abstinence programs in school work?
At least the newer safe sex programs are cutting down on some of the teen pregnancies and STDs.
Wow, perfect analogy. I’m going to have to remember that one. It might actually drive the point home for a lot of people.
Abstinence works so well for teen pregnancy though right?
Statistics bear out this truth, that what parents ought to ask their potential playmate’s parents is this, “do you have in your house any anti-psychotic or anti-anxiety medications? If so, do you keep them locked up at all times?”
Nothing sends American kids to the emergency room like the pills they find and gobble that the parents leave accessible. A number of those pills can be lethal and many of them can cause severe organ damage.
Mike Appeiser. Never heard of him except here.
Real gun safety requires endless repetition and ‘in-situ’ training, just like real water safety requires. Just like all forms of safety education requires.
People have to have not only the safety rules deeply ingrained, but the behavior as well. It needs to become second-nature for kids and adults to naturally react with something like “Hey dumbass! Point that in a safe direction and finger off the trigger!”
Stop, don’t read, go tell an adult … that’s how I feel about all anti gun articles because they’re all written by children. Go back to your bed sheets to hide from the monsters libturds!
Somebody is paying him. He’s still not publicly admitted that he founded National Medical Council on Gun Violence. He makes pro gun control statements in his blog and, if you click on the link, it takes you to Amazon where you can purchase the latest gun control books from esteemed researchers like David Hemenway. I find it funny that David Hemenway is listed as an Adviser to NMCGV.
Weisser lists his “Guns for good guys, Guns for bad guys” book on his blog as “Check out OUR latest book”. Yet, he is listed as the sole author. Strange.
Yet another interesting fact is he claims to have sold over 12,000 guns in one post, 15,000 in another and claims to have sold over 40,000 guns on his Amazon page.
Safe storage is the key to firearms safety if you want to prevent the 100 or so young children who find a firearm and harm themselves or someone else every year.
Beyond that, “safe storage” isn’t going to accomplish very much.
It is more kids than that if one counts all the injuries, but as we found in NJ, over the past decade the 200 cases were over 60% in the 18-24 year old “child” cohort, almost all of them gang members, and almost al of the rest were children living in homes of gang members or prior criminals with illegal guns.
PLease don’t give Mike “the gun traitor” a voice on TTAG. Very offensive when you allowed it to comment too…it’s analogous to having bloomie or feinstein writing a guest post…
Same old story from low life POS Mike “The Gun Guy” Weisser.
http://ammoland.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Mike-Weisser.jpg
Ever since Sandy Hook, the gun industry has decided that safety is its middle name.
That would be the gun control—AHEM! “gun safety” movement, not the gun rights movement.
You’ll pardon me for sounding just a tad sarcastic in this commentary, but this new-found concern about safety issues is interesting, given the fact that gun design hasn’t really changed in the last 125 years. In other words, guns are as lethal and dangerous now as when the invention of smokeless-powder cartridges in the 1880s allowed gun makers to design small arms that could fire multiple rounds without having to be reloaded after every shot.
REEEAAALLLY? So you mean all that hoopla about how they have these super-powerful, ultra-deadly, weapons of mass destruction firearms today is really nonsense? That the guns of today are not much different than what has been legal for over 100 years now?
“Julie reappears and chants the usual refrain borrowed from the NRA’s phony safety program, Eddie Eagle, about not touching the gun…”
How, pray tell, is the NRA’s Eddie the Eagle safety program “phony”?
Hey, demanding moms, Bloomberg –
Here’s a challenge for you that would be actual wise gun safety.
Produce an actual thoughtful public service announcement for children with what they should do when they come across a gun.
Eddie Eagle is phony? O.K. You may be able to do better.
Let’s see your public service announcement.
It will start like this: Two kids are playing inside someone’s house and find a gun.
Now you finish the public service announcement.
This we be real, tangible gun safety.
Impress us with your superior skillset.
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