Gun Industry: Make Sure Your Kid Gets His Gun First So He Won't Feel Left Out

Listen, you people. We have been TRYING to have NICE TIME on the weekends. Why can't we just have nice time? We could write some fan fic. (OK, admittedly, that's more weird time than nice time, but you get the point.) We'd like to have some coffee, chill out, read the New York Times...and then find out that jesus christ the new gun marketing strategy is to MARKET GUNS TO CHILDREN. This is why we can't have nice time goddammit.

Threatened by long-term declining participation in shooting sports, the firearms industry has poured millions of dollars into a broad campaign to ensure its future by getting guns into the hands of more, and younger, children.

The industry’s strategies include giving firearms, ammunition and cash to youth groups; weakening state restrictions on hunting by young children; marketing an affordable military-style rifle for “junior shooters” and sponsoring semiautomatic-handgun competitions for youths; and developing a target-shooting video game that promotes brand-name weapons, with links to the Web sites of their makers.

Wait just a good goddamn minute. Yr Wonkette (well, the older parts of yr Wonkette, anyway) remember the halcyon days when cigarettes were marketed to children, the good times when you could buy a pack of cigarettes from the knife shop in the mall at age 15 (no, really - that actually happened. KNIFE SHOP AT THE MALL. Weapon-y type knives, not ginsu-type knives, in case that wasn't clear.) What happened to that? Looks like the FDA brung down the hammer hard on marketing to the young-uns:

New Requirements Relating to Marketing (Labeling, Advertising, and Promotion)

• Prohibits tobacco brand name sponsorship of any athletic, musical, or other social or cultural event, or any team or entry in those events.

• Requires that audio ads use only words with no music or sound effects.

• Prohibits the sale or distribution of items, such as hats and tee shirts, with cigarette and smokeless tobacco brands or logos.

Now listen. Yr Wonkette, even the non-lawyerly ones, understand the distinction between access to cigarettes and access to guns, and how the latter is your fucking birthright as a 'Merican. That aside, can't we all agree that there's a wee bit of a safety issue, not to mention a really large "what the ever living fuck" issue, with marketing an "affordable military rifle" to kids? Also, too, with having a semi-automatic handgun shooting competition for kidlets, which just sounds like the Hunger Games movie and we HATE the Hunger Games movie.

Lest you're consoling yourself with the fact that this is likely for older, more responsible children, HAHAHAHAHAHA:  

The overall objective was summed up in another study, commissioned last year by the shooting sports industry, that suggested encouraging children experienced in firearms to recruit other young people. The report, which focused on children ages 8 to 17, said these “peer ambassadors” should help introduce wary youngsters to guns slowly, perhaps through paintball, archery or some other less intimidating activity.

“The point should be to get newcomers started shooting something, with the natural next step being a move toward actual firearms,” said the report, which was prepared for the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the Hunting Heritage Trust.

Yes, you read that right. Older children should recruit younger children by introducing "wary" children (WHO ARE WARY WITH GOOD REASON) to fun paint-y guns slowly so that they can graduate to more advanced killing machines.

We are getting tired of reminding everyone that we are living in the fucking end-times. Yr Wonkette is the new Edward Gibbons.

Nice time is totally wrecked. We're skipping coffee and going straight to whiskey, and unless the New York Times is elsewhere featuring a photo essay on cute kittens, we're going to stare at our wall instead, because that will be more soothing.

[ NYT ]