Moms Demand Action launched a new campaign this year to encourage parents to “BeSmart” about gun safety. The problem? Their “instructors” don’t appear to know the first thing about safe gun handling.
BeSmart instructor Marcia Banta spoke to a local chapter of the League of Women Voters in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley about the need for parents to “model responsible behavior” to their children. In the process, as reported by The Lewiston Tribune, she held a training handgun by the muzzle.
Group promotes firearm safety; Moms Demand Action presents information in Lewiston on its campaign that encourages responsible gun ownership. https://t.co/3d69JvQx1r pic.twitter.com/MciQkJq8Uc
— LewistonTribune (@LewistonTribune) December 13, 2018
“Deliberately, there is nothing in this program that says you shouldn’t have a gun,” Banta told the Tribune. “As a matter of fact, we are speaking much to people who do own guns. I am confident there is no one in this valley who sells guns that wants those guns to harm children.”
Funded by Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety, BeSmart encourages parents to secure firearms in homes and vehicles, model responsible behavior, ask about unsecured guns in other homes, recognize the risks of teen suicides, and tell peers to be SMART.
BeSmart claims that “nearly” 300 children per year unintentionally shoot themselves or someone else in the United States. They also note that “nearly” 500 commit suicide with a gun.
As evidence for their claims, the group links to another Everytown campaign, #NotAnAccident, that only identified 196 unintentional shootings by children in 2018. In the past four years, the group identified 278 incidents in 2015, 264 in 2016, and 287 in 2018.
But statistics on this issue are famously difficult to verify – and often misrepresented and exaggerated.
Exclusive: New Brady Campaign Ad Uses Misleading, Trumped-Up Stats to Push Safe Storage
Earlier this year, the Brady Campaign and Center to Prevent Gun Violence released an ad stating that 8 “kids” are unintentionally killed or injured by gunshot wounds every day in the United States. A closer look at the statistics they cited revealed that the real number of children (age 0-17) is closer to four.
BeSmart’s stat is lower (less than one per day) because they only include children who find their parents’ unsecured firearms. But even this number is likely inflated. One of the incidents they cite, for example, involved a 17-year-old girl who shot herself in the leg with a stolen AK-47. The girl was with the 16-year-old boy who had stolen the rifle, and she was trying to fit it down her pant leg.
Another incident cited by BeSmart involved a 16-year-old male who accidentally shot a 19-year-old male in a residence hall at the University of Akron, OH. While this is the kind of incident the campaign might point to as justification for its work, it’s difficult to imagine how a parent could have prevented it, and local media doesn’t mention where the 16-year-old acquired the weapon.
More children in cities like Chicago, Baltimore, NYC and Detroit are killed in drivebys than by gun accidents.
Never point the bbl of a weapons at anytHing you dont want to destroy AND THAT INCLUDES YOU OWN HAND OR BODY!
MILFYs seeking ‘action,’ & firearms, are NOT a good combo… 😳
Right up there with a retired “Air Force” General talking about “fully-semi-automatic” rifles.
ID10Ts
That’s what you get when you get a dike (a want to be man) to teach gun saftey😁
This is why serious gun conversations cannot be had with left wing groups. In order to discuss a firearm, you must first know what you are talking about. Someone as careless as this women should not be instructing others on gun safety. Training gun or not, you treat them all as if they are loaded
There is clearly a magazine in this weapon. Slide is forward. Is it clear or loaded?
i bet she knows which end to grab her happy stick by
This is the most pathetic gun related act I have ever seen.
Don’t think it’s about gun safety, but more to load people up with anti-gun rhetoric and scare them into hating guns. The safety part is just cover for the real training!
This only proves that their actions are as messed up as their ability to “think”. Their information is totally out of whack and they pray that the people they speak to are swallowing the fake news. Libturds are the demise of OUR country and the AMERICAN people should perform due diligence before accepting libturd “information” . WAKE THE HELL UP AMERICA.
Realistically, does it matter if their numbers are wrong? They are trying to teach gun safety. If they are crap at it, shouldn’t we be out there helping them?
300, 400 or 500 dead kids a year is too many. It doesn’t matter about texting or malpractice, they aren’t our problem. Keeping our guns is our problem.
The numbers are important because the numbers are completely false along with numbers of gun related deaths. They don’t talk about where all these shootings are, Chicago, LA, Newark, etc. all the Democratic controlled towns with “strict” gun laws. Go after the gangs and criminals that are committing most of these crimes. The guns are not the problem, the criminals are, but they are not being prosecuted but running free.
What I think is happening she is demonstrating how to use a handgun as an attack mallet once your run out of the three rounds that liberals will allow you to carry soon
These women are like puppets whose strings are being pulled by others with not-so-hidden agendas. As long as they get to play dress up and others are paying for them to them to have “fun” they see nothing wrong with it. Yet there are thousands of gun laws in the U.S. and they couldn’t name ten of them if their lives depended on it. They expect to protest and someone will magically wiggle their nose and come up with the “perfect” law that they can take credit for! This would “prove” they are good moms even if they don’t know laws don’t prevent anything, they only provide a punishment.
She is full of manure.
Emotionalism and massive ignorance control these peoples lives. With ABSOLUTELY no knowledge they claim to be teachers, educators or experts. In REALITY they are simply control freaks driven by their emotions and should be ignored and castigated for being such.
Regardless of what topic or subject you are teaching you never want to demonstrate how not to do something. You re-enforce training techniques only by showing someone how to do things the correct way. Remember that because some of the dimmer students in class forget that you said this is not how to hold the gun prior to you demonstrating by holding the gun improperly. The visual of you holding it by the muzzle sticks but your words do not….
The intention is good but how they’re trying to do it is wrong. Get proper instruction kids. Be safe.
I REALLY wish that these “moms” would all read the book “Assassination Generation” about the impact that vicious video games have on our kids. Guns are ONLY THE TOOL. The people playing these videos such as Grand Theft Auto, etc. etc. are being programmed how to kill and there is ample medical evidence of the changes that take place in the brains of people obsessed with these games.
When I first saw this photo, I too though, “that’s not good instruction” . But is there more to this than what we see? The story does not tell us every thing. Is the instructor pointing out the improper ways as part of her class?
I would like to read or see the full story, before I make further pro or con comments.
@Jerry How many times have you seen a bona fide firearms instructor hold the muzzle to demonstrate the incorrect way to hold a gun? For me, that would be zero.
No matter what the discussion/demonstration was about, you NEVER do this . . . duh
End of discussion/demonstration. . .
Not that I really give a load… I wondered, though, WHY it seems I provide PHOTO and or LIKENESS on here to NOTHING BUY BLANK IMAGES for 99+% of other users. “PERHAPS”…Afraid to be SEEN?
Correction >>>>NOTHING BUT BLANK IMAGES for 99+% of other users.
How much does it really matter T ? Take your picture down if it means all that much to you.
Mother’s?? Who’s kidding who??
IF these are the mothers, then their kids have to be in their 30’s by now!!
I am sick of seeing these libtards screaming about crap they know nothing about..for their Little Kids!! And every one of them is OVER 50!!
They need a new name. Maybe Grandlibtards against common sense! They have NONE, so they want it banned so you won’t see how stupid they are!! Morons.
Just from a PHOTO, HOLDING a pistol by the muzzle “PROVES” Ignorance. Sorta looks like a peasant from a SOCIALIZED in a FORMING… THIRD WORLD COUNTRY !This is the BLIND STUPIDITY, GLOBALISTS NEED.
One must question where this person obtained her instructor’s certificate? For sure it was’nt from any national recniozed shooting orgiznation that have qualified Gun Safety Clinic’s,aka, ATA,NSSA,NSSF or NRA.
I believe Arsion Hall used to say, ” HMM”
Yeah, I think it’s a SOCIALIST “PLOY” ignorant to the CONSTITUTION because “SOCIALIST” have been teaching SOCIALISM THE LAST 2-3 DECADES to OUR KIDS, THINK…”TRANNY STORY TIME…”WAAAAAT?”… GOD have MERCY on US!
Whenever liberals get involved in anything the first casualty is common sense. They go “full steam ahead” without knowing a damn thing about what they’re doing! It’s all part of the disease!
If these so called “Mom’s” were at all concerned with “Safety” then they would be barking from the highest mountains about the 10,000 deaths a year from younger generation texting and driving, which is not a right. They might even consider that Doctors kill 250,000 a year in malpractice situations, 10 times all gun related deaths!
One can’t help question..”WHAT is their stances on UNBORN CHILDREN being ABORTED for nothing more than THE “SO-CALLED” WOMAN doesn’t want the BABY!?
This whole anti-gun movement was never really about safety. Rather, it’s about taking away our 2nd (and our 1st) Amendment rights. If the leftists/globalist can take away our guns, they have everything else.
Some of these radical groups, who want everything and every aspect of everything to be according to THEIR rules and preachings, just get so upset with the “moment” that they fail to account for the “big picture” and tell a true story of HOW a single photo came to be. I would bet that, had that been a real weapon instead of a “training gun” which is nothing more than a totally inert “blue gun”, the speaker/trainer would have shown how to properly eject the magazine, clear the weapon’s chamber, and either re-clear the chamber or lock the slide in the open position before holding it up by the muzzle or any other position. I see responsible trainers frequently hold sub-compact weapons in the palm of their hand to show the size comparison and they wrap their finger tips around the muzzle area as they talk. In and of itself, that scenario may be an infringement on proper gun safety, but any photo will not tell the whole story of clearing the weapon and ensuring that it becomes nothing more than a plastic and steel piece of equipment built to do a job after it is properly cleared. It would be the same as picking up a cordless drill with a bit installed and the battery removed and handling it by the chuck end of the drill while explaining the different parts of the drill. A photo of such an action, depending on which angle the photo is taken, would imply that the “trainer” was not “safely” handling the drill.
I am quite fed up with the fantasy tactics that are used to discriminate against anybody who, in any way, appears to be doing something wrong in any situation. I walk my dog, in the winter, with a hoodie on to keep from losing much of my body heat through my bald head. Does that automatically make me a stalker, rapist, bank robber,or any other “bad” type of character who is identified with wearing a hoodie??
Can you quote the four top of the chain gun Safety Rules?? I doubt it because number one is: Treat all firearms as if they are loaded! Including our military! Say nit picker, that includes those used for training real or not, such common sense is the reason they are called the commandments of gun safety! You can’t teach common sense unless you posses it. Sometimes it’s better to remain silent than to remove all doubt of personnel stupidity and ignorance!
Ha Ha Ha… YEAH! STALKER! LOL kidding, people can’t even TAKE JOKES anymore, I SAY “TOO BAD, IDIOTS… lol
scissors are dangerous! so this is how they’re to be carried lol
Stupid is what stupid does
She needs to put on those glasses hanging around her neck then maybe she will be able to figure out that’s the muzzle not the grip.
Did you really expect these groups to post honest statistics or know how to handle a gun? Come on.
These people collectively don’t have the brains God gave geese.
She should begin by reading aloud Col. Jeff Cooper’s four Rules For Firearm Safety, and then apply said rules.
BeSmart should just go by their convenient acronym B.S.
MomsDemandAction should call themselves Moms who don’t know shit about firearms…just like all the other “gun-control” groups
Good for them.