Gun Watch Blog on the NCPC "Lock it Up" Billboard

Last year, this blog reported on the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC)/ Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)/AdCouncil public service announcements that are suppose to encourage gun owners to properly store their firearms when not in use.  BJA is one of the grant making bureaus at the U.S. Department of Justice and the Obama administration found $1 million laying around in 2013 and directed BJA to give the funds to NCPC to produce these ads.  Setting aside the obviously anti-gun bias of the ads in question, the fact that public service announcements for the most part run on TV and radio when no one is likely to hear them, they are probably the best way to waste taxpayer money.

Probably for that reason, the radio and TV ads have not garnered much attention from either side of the issue.  But over the weekend, Gun Watch blogger Dean Weingarten noticed one of the billboard ads in Yuma, Arizona and wrote about it.

What is wrong with the above picture?  Everything.  First, it gives the impression that small children gaining access to firearms is a big problem in this country.  It isn't.  The number of children under five that die in firearm accidents each year is in the single digits.  Most of those are shot by an adult.  In a country of 313 million people and 347 million firearms, that is a remarkable safety record.

So why the picture of a 4 year old with a revolver?  Simple.  Shock propaganda value aimed at the non-gun owner, and an attempt to demonize guns more than they already are.  If you dig into the campaign further, the attempt is to push gun owners to lock up their guns when "not in use".   The ad is couched in terms of in terms of "gun safety", pushing the idea that guns should be "locked up".

This happens to echo the latest push for gun control by the left, the San Francisco ordinance that any handgun in the home, that is not being carried on the person of an adult, "must" be locked up, which is now being echoed in a proposed Los Angeles ordinance.  

Weingarten's comments echo those posted on this blog last June when the campaign was originally launched - that far from simply being a campaign asking people to voluntarily secure their guns, the very images created for the campaign were developed to demonize firearms and promote the idea that guns are bad and should be locked up.  A far more effective campaign is NSSF's Project ChildSafe.

Department of Justice's Million Dollar "Gun Safety" Public Service Announcements

So this is how the Obama Administration spends $1 million of taxpayers money trying to reach gun owners with a message about safe storage of firearms.

That was the most offensive of the two television public service announcement developed by the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) and the Ad Council and funded by the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance.  You see, firearms are scary. They scare kids, and, they cause nightmares, and are something for which we have to apologize.  Apparently, they didn't think about the millions of kids that participate in the shooting sports.

If they had simply stayed with the below, ad, it might not have been so bad, other than the fact NCPC/Ad Council must think that gun owners need children to tell them how to "follow rules."

But the print ads are even worse:

The above print and video ads are all part of a campaign where the Obama Administration found $1 million laying around (at a time when the "sequester" was causing cuts in defense) to spend on this.  You'd think from the ads, that there is an epidemic of accidental deaths from firearms in the home.  But just the opposite is true.

So, you tell me, which do you think will be a more effective firearm safety campaign targeting gun owners, something like this:

or the Justice Department/BJA/NCPC campaign?

By the way, the Julie Golob firearm safety campaign rolled out for Mother's Day didn't cost $1 million.