Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
By Larry Keane
California and Illinois laws that have banned advertising in those two states considered to be targeted at minors don’t have anything to do with increasing public safety. It doesn’t have anything to do with fighting the criminal misuse of firearms. The laws are intended to do one thing – convince the next generation of Americans that the Second Amendment doesn’t exist.
Firearm Marketing Bans
Lawmakers in those two states passed, and Govs. Gavin Newsom and J.B. Pritzker signed, laws that ban firearm-related advertising that could be attractive or be considered to target children. NSSF has filed legal challenges to both laws in California and Illinois. Those laws violate not only the First Amendment-protected right of commercial speech but also work to eliminate the Second Amendment from the conversation with the next generation of gun owners and outdoorsmen and women. These lawmakers believe that if they can erase imagery and advertising that shows youth learning safe and responsible firearm ownership and ethical hunting traditions, the next generation will never understand that the Second Amendment is their right to exercise when they become of legal age to purchase firearms on their own.
If the next generation of Americans don’t learn about Second Amendment freedoms, they won’t know. If they don’t know, gun control politicians would have an easier avenue by which to eliminate the right altogether. It’s a devious plan and one the firearm industry is fighting against.
Target: Youth
California’s and Illinois’ laws are targeting advertising for youth-model firearms that parents could purchase to teach youths to safely and responsibly handle firearms. The rifle and shotguns are simply the latest in a long series of youth-model firearms designed to fit younger marksmen learning to safely shoot.
Many of today’s adult shooting sports enthusiasts will recall learning the fundamentals of shooting on youth-model firearms. This is nothing new. Manufacturers have been offering smaller caliber and smaller gauges for those learning responsible firearm handling for decades. None of that, however, changes how firearms are purchased.
Every firearm purchased at retail is only sold to adults over 18 and after signing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Form 4473 that attests the purchaser is not a prohibited individual and is confirmed with the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Since firearms can’t be purchased by youths, it negates the accusations that firearm manufacturers are targeting children with advertising. Instead, the bans on advertising eliminate depictions that firearm safety and hunting traditions can be passed down to the next generation of Americans who would value their rights and the hunting memories made with adults closely supervising them.
Disastrous Effects
That’s not hyperbole. USA Clay Target League suspended activities in California after the law banning advertising “attractive to minors” was signed there. That carries a $25,000 civil penalty for any and each instance of firearm-related marketing to persons under the age of 18.
“Some parents and students say this law could end up costing them their sport,” Reason.com reported.
Growing Interest
These laws are intended to squelch the conversation of youths learning safe and responsible firearm ownership and it’s coming at a time when youth shooting sports are experiencing a renaissance of sorts. USA Clay Target League President John Nelson said that Minnesota’s statewide clay shooting competition drew nearly 8,000 student competitors from 340 teams this year. When he started in 2009, there were 10 in the competition.
The Reload reported that it’s not just a regional phenomenon. Nationwide, there are more than 1,500 teams and nearly 45,000 athletes, according to USA Clay Target Shooting’s annual report. The Chicago Tribune reported in 2021, that Illinois had 55 teams. Arkansas’ Game and Fish Commission recently announced the creation of its new Shooting Sports Division, elevating the shooting sports from a program to a full-blown department within the agency that will have a concentration on growing the youth shooting sports.
The effort to erase responsible firearm ownership from the minds of youth is getting a boost from the federal government too. The Biden administration’s Department of Education stripped funding for hunter education and archery programs after deliberately misinterpreting the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA). Congress is up in arms over that maneuver. U.S. senators and representatives from both parties are blasting the decision to defund classes that teach safe and responsible firearm ownership. So are governors and state attorneys general. NSSF supports H. Res. 615, a resolution introduced by Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) condemning the Biden administration’s attack on schools that educate students on responsible firearm handling.
None of these legislative or policies attacks are designed to curb the criminal misuse of firearms. They only stop the ability for parents and guardians to pass along their passion for the shooting sports and value for their fundamental Second Amendment freedoms. The antigun attacks were never designed to stop crime. They only stop the respect for safe and responsible firearm ownership and diminish Second Amendment rights to the point where the next generation won’t know that their rights were taken from them.
Larry Keane is Senior Vice President of Government and Public Affairs and General Counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry trade association.
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This article is spot on. Newsom, along with his buddy AG Bonta in Kalifornia, and Pritzker, another progressive tyrant, HATE the Second Amendment and those citizens who would DARE to exercise that right, and will stop at nothing to deny that right to law-abiding citizens. Newsom has even championed a new 28th Constitutional Amendment to specifically INFRINGE upon and DENY citizens their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. All part of the progressive Democratic agenda of one party totalitarian rule these communist’s crave.
All this is pointless without addressing violent video games. Video games are teaching young men about gun culture in the same way porn is teaching them about love.
Have you ever consider the possibilty that there has been for along time. within the US, elements that work toward toward corrupting the moral fabric of our society? One of the methods is developng mind control, promoting violence, ignorance and perversions et cetera. A prime example is CIA’s MKUltra Mind Control Project with sinister people like Louis Jolyon West.
Maybe what you see is NOT a result of apathy and incompetance, maybe there are all together differant factors.
Maybe trusting creepy, powerful government stooges and erroding the 2A is a really bad idea.
singling out just men for gun crimes and and for sex issue that don’t meet your standards………dumb assed commie liberal lover.
There is an interesting documentary easily found called “To Keep and Bear Arms-The Big Picture.” I would guess the film was produced in the late 50’s or early 60’s by the DOD and the US Army with Honorable mention going to the NRA as part of the National defense effort. The NRA established most of the sound gun safety procedures that are in use today and this film shows the active cooperation between the US Army and the NRA at that time.
Today the US Army is under the control of diabolical creatures like that Miley who push anti-American philosophies. The intention of this documentary was to preserve the strength and freedom of the US. Part of the stratedgy was to promote and deveope healthy young minds, a moral and armed US society taught “self disipline, innitiative and team spirit.” All honest people admit have we seen the evil indoctrination of the youth of the US that has brought about a generation (z) that shares little in common with previous American generations.
This film is evidence established by the Army Historical Center of the long term destruction of the US society commited by the left-wingers from witin. The “enemy within” is a very real threat and now the Americans with sound values have become the target of institutions that have been usurped by the left.
I watched the video in question , sir , and believe that
it should be viewed by all patriotic citizens of our Nation .
My intention is to ask my children to view it , and God
willing , be certain my Grandchildren see it as well .
As a young child , it was not necessary for me to view it .
My Father , rest his soul , instilled these ideas upon me
from my earliest memories . But then again he was a Veteran
of the conflict in Vietnam , Republic of .
Thanks for checking it out, it seems like a total differant culture than the one that now exists. Now the false morality pushed on children is celebrating mutilation and perversion.
news flash……they are purposefully traumatizing students against guns while in school…..did people really expect them to show kids anything positive about guns?
This is why I showed my children gun safety and proper usage, and they will teach their children and so on, this is very important for you as a parent to guide your children as they grow into productive adults.