As I read my post over again…I’m a bit appalled at myself. Kalashnikov’s comparison of a faked gun picture to a faked picture of a child touching an adult penis was just…too…crazed, and seemed a bit straw man to me…not only would a fake or real photo of an infant with a dildo be child pornography and illegal…it just…it’s…DID YOU THINK SOMEONE WOULD SAY THAT’S FINE?
I hate guns. Always have. And maybe the disgust and horror you’re feeling at seeing that child with a gun will be the same disgust and horror some young mother or father with a fucking gun laying around their house will feel and it will make them do something about it.
Scream up and down all you want about how responsible YOU are, and your DAD is, and your girlfriend and wife and daughter and dog and Charlton Heston and all that…SOME PEOPLE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE GUN OWNERS…and need to be beaten repeatedly about the mind and soul to remind them of how stupid they are.
If a faked photo will do that…I’M ALL FOR IT.
I apologize for the callous nature of my last post. if the mods want to delete it, that’s fine.
And why aren’t you seeing another message in that poster? Do you suppose that it’s even just possible that they’re talking about having the things marketed with child protect locks on them?
Or perhaps recognizing something like that would’ve interfered with the rant.
The best reason to be pissed about the linked poster in the OP is that it is, like so much propaganda, fundamentally dishonest. It implies that there are scads of babies out there playing, unmonitored, with handguns, just moments away from blowing their heads off. We must protect the babies!!!
Meanwhile, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, in 1999 (the latest year for which full stats are available), the number of Americans under 1 year of age who died from firearms injuries is . . . eight. Eight. All tragedies, but not only not an epidemic, not even a freaking statistical blip.
The number that died from an accidental discharge of firearms? Take a guess. Go on. I bet you guessed “Eight,” right?
Wrong. It was zero. No infants in this country died as a result of playing with a firearm. Zero. Zilch. Nada. All eight infant firearms deaths were homicide, and all were listed as intentional.
And just FTR, the number of children aged 1-4 who died as a result of an accidental discharge of firearms. Twelve. The number who died as a result of an intentional shooting by someone else? Fifty. In fact, of the 40,481 persons under the age of 15 who died that year, only 489 died of any firearms-related cause, and only 88 died as a result of an accidental firearms discharge. Eighty-eight out of 40,481 is two-tenths of a percent.
The Million Mom March are lying sacks of shit. Their vaunted Epidemic of Handgun Violence Slaughtering Our Children, And Won’t Someone Please Think Of The Children! is a lie, and they know it. If they can’t make their points honestly, they don’t deserve to be heard.
I have to agree with the OP, although a bit less vehemently. It is an irresponsible and reckless advertisement, which, as pldennision points out, fails in its hyperbolic message even at the fundamental level of being truthful.
The real irony is that I, a careful, conscientious firearms owner who believes adamantly in firearms safety (including that “absurd” notion that “every gun is always loaded”), takes such offence at the ad. And that some who have a history on this Board of being anti-gun don’t think that it’s any big deal.
Maybe this is a hard concept for some to grasp, but there are those of us who do have the right to bear arms for our personal protection, and who do so safely, carefully, and with the utmost respect for the terrible power that we can hold in our hands - the power to extinguish life with a simple finger motion. And every time I read a person here on the SDMB tell me how I have no “right” to defend my own life or my person, or see them lump me in with some sterotype of a drunken supremacist worthy of Springer, or worst of all simply present lies as facts and refuse to respond to my factual points on Constitutional law (instead ducking out and returning to post the same lies a week later), it’s a slap across not just my face, but the proverbial face of the truth.
Ok, we really have two totally separate issues here.
One is the issue of actually breaking the Rules, and a drawing or photoshopped picture doesn’t do that, ok.
The other is one of not caring whether you appear to break the rules, which implies either that you do not know them or that you don’t care about safely.
I suppose a drawing doesn’t imply that the way a realistic image does - so it does basicaly satisfy my objections, but not necessarily Anthracite and pldennison’s.
C’mon, Kalashnikov, PLD made it abundantly clear that there is FAR more to bash the MMM about than the fact that they’re far more unsafe with guns that your average gun owner.
I think the ad is to promote protecting your children from any firearms you may have in the house…by making sure they’re safely away from the munchkins. And by using a baby playing with a firearm, they evoke the strongest response.
I do believe the photo was airbrushed in…I can’t see Suzy Homemaker popping her baby down on a podium at Olan Mills, giving it a Colt .45 to play with, and telling the photographer, “Hurry up! This picture has to be at the printer’s before 5!”
Ah, but there was that instance a few months ago about the cop who was killed with his own gun when his toddler picked up the weapon he had just unholstered and shot him with it.
C’mon, people. Since when has political commentary (and this is politicall commentary, despite being in the form of an ad) have to be measured and passionless?
It’s supposed to shock you and make you mad.
Would it help if the ad ran with a disclaimer like, “No babies were harmed in the making of this ad”?
On further thought, I suppose I can see the OP’s point.
It is relying on pathos. The Helen Lovejoy-esque “Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the children” type which usually gets my goat, too. I remember someone starting a pit thread about an ad campaign that was pro-life and relying on cute babies (“Shake the nation”?) and people found it really distasteful. I guess using children/infants is very manipulative, like using the lowest common denominator.
I don’t personally have a problem with it, but I do see how it might make someone pissed off. But to come to a point, I can see why someone might hate an ad like this for being manipulative. And maybe that’s why it inspired such anger in you. But I don’t think picturing an infant with a gun is in and of itself harmful.
So you’re saying a family that hadn’t been touched by AIDS (or cancer or ALS or lupus) until two years ago when one of their own contracted it, shouldn’t now spend time educating others, donating money to cure it, and lobbying to get federal funds to scientists working on a vaccine?
No, but unfortunately people don’t often take up a cause until it hits close to home. Enter the “white middle class soccer moms.” The MMM’s sole purpose is to eradicate gun violence among children-- a noble cause, because IMO even one death is too many. (Their methods of doing things may or not be questionable, I’m not here to argue that). But should they just quit what they’re doing because they didn’t start it 10 years earlier? Or maybe it should’ve been started 20 years earlier? 40 years? 80 years? Fuck that. Better late than never.
Regarding the OP, yeah the ad was offensive, but that was the point. Shock value is never underestimated by marketing gurus. Obviously no one is going to give an infant a handgun to play with. But as heinous as that image is, any child getting accidentally shot because he or she was playing with a carelessly stored gun is equally heinous. Maybe you’d have preferred to see a three-year-old in this ad instead.
And FTR, I’ve got no problem with people owning guns-- of the hand variety, or otherwise-- but firearm safety with children around can not be stressed enough. And unfortunately there are still assholes out there who haven’t gotten that message.
If the anti-gunners feel they need to resort to base scare tactics and blatant emotional manipulation, they should reassess where they have gone as a movement and try to represent their rational segment, not appeal to the lunatic fringe.
Kalashnikov takes gun safety so seriously that he finds disrespect of it offensive. Over here, we have people who take sucking cock so seriously that they find disrespect of it offensive. I don’t think Kalashnikov’s being unreasonable, when you consider what people usually freak out over.
YEAH! I despise emotional manipulation every morning while I don my 100% preshrunk cotton T-shirt displaying the three greatest symbols of freedom, the bald eagle, the American flag and the Second Amendment. Over coffe I watch my president™ reaffirm that if my right to bear arms is restricted, freedom is dead. Damn MILFS and their scare tactics.
The photo is meant to be horrifying. It’s supposed to show what can happen if people don’t practice gun safety. It’s not anti-gun; it’s just endorsing the sensible handling of guns.
You’ve interpreted the photo as saying “We don’t actually know or care anything AT ALL about gun safety”. I think it’s saying, “This is the worst-case scenario.” It’s an arresting image, if you’ll pardon the expression. Now, the caption is somewhat biased; I admit that. But if you agree that a baby holding a gun is something you never want to happen either, then you and the MMM have at least one agenda in common.
It was also very probably Photoshopped.
I’m all in favor of the 2nd Amendment. But I’m also in favor of gun safety and proper firearms training, because if enough avoidable accidents pile up, the anti-gun people will get the amendment repealed. If a horrfying photo that shows what could happen if people handle guns irresponsibly motivates gun owners to exercise caution, I’m all for it.
You said it yourself: “All guns are loaded.” This seems to indicate that you know your shit where guns are concerned. I get the impression that numerous people have given you a hard time, insinuating that the mere fact that you own a gun makes you a criminal. I can fully understand how that would wear your patience paper-thin.
But the photo is not an accusation that you, personally, would leave your gun where an infant could find it. And I also don’t think that the MMM would deliberately put an infant in danger for the purpose of exhorting people not to put infants in danger.
First, thanks to pldennison for an excellent and informed post.
Second:
Ok, what if (and I have never ever touched a gun in my life, so if any of this is anatomically incorrect, feel free to correct me), what if I’ve got a gun, open the chamber, there is/are no bullets in it. I even fire it off a few times to make sure. Could I not then say there is a zero percent chance of my killing someone with that gun?
What you’re saying sounds a lot like many safety “rules” which generally make sense, but there are plenty of occasions when the rules do not apply. Example: “Don’t drink and drive.” Well, if I went out to dinner with some friends, and I had a glass of wine or a beer, I have no qualms about getting into my car and driving home (of course, after evaluating how much I had to drink). Some people might say, “that’s horrible, you should never drink and drive, baby killer!!!” but they’re just being rediculous; throwing the “rule” at me which does not take into account my own level of responsibility.
