Marketing Guns to Children Canard

There are two ways to drum up strong political support for your cause: tie to to fighting terrorism or saving the children. Gun control advocates sometimes dabble in the former but their bread and butter is the latter. With their recent slew of defeats the gun control bunch have decided to play its hand at “saving the children” again but pushing legislation that would prohibit anybody from “marketing firearms to children”:

(a) Conduct Prohibited.–Not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Federal Trade Commission shall promulgate rules in accordance with section 553 of title 5, United States Code, to prohibit any person from marketing firearms to children. Such rules shall include the following:

(1) A prohibition on the use of cartoon characters to promote firearms and firearm products.

(2) A prohibition on firearm brand name merchandise marketed for children (such as hats, t-shirts, and stuffed animals).

(3) A prohibition on the use of firearm marketing campaigns with the specific intent to appeal to children.

(4) A prohibition on the manufacturing of a gun with colors or designs that are specifically designed with the purpose to appeal to children.

(5) A prohibition on the manufacturing of a gun intended for use by children that does not clearly and conspicuously note the risk posed by the firearm by labeling somewhere visible on the firearm any of the following:

(A) “Real gun, not a toy.”.

(B) “Actual firearm the use of which may result in death or serious bodily injury.”.

(C) “Dangerous weapon”.

(D) Other similar language determined by the Federal Trade Commission.

I think Tam summed it up best:

Look, if you think that the firearms industry is actually spending advertising dollars to market its products to a demographic that is going to save enough quarters from their allowance to buy a Glock, toddle into the gun shop, reach up on tiptoe and slide their piggy bank across the counter, only to be told “Sorry, kid, you gotta be 21 to buy that“…

This is just another piece of meaningless legislation. Its only purpose is to make up a currently nonexistent problem and then claim to fix it. Gun control advocates are pushing it because it gives them grounds for demonizing gun owners by pointing to the make believe problem of gun manufacturers marketing to children and then claiming that gun owners directly fund it.

It’s really just another variation of “having a gun control conversation”. When a gun control advocate says they want to “have a conversation” what they really mean is that they want a gun owner to say something that can be taken out of context and used to demonize gun owners everywhere. If a conversation doesn’t give the gun control advocates their desired sound bite they just claim that the gun owners refused to “have a conversation”, which is an insinuation that the gun owner isn’t a reasonable person and is entirely unwilling to discuss methods of keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people.

As despots through out have learned, if you can’t win with facts you try to demonize your opposition.