NBC: Gun control group targets firearms owners with new ads, seeks common ground

NBC News has a report on a new ad campaign by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence titled "End Family Fire." The term "End Family Fire" refers to "accidental shootings of children and other family members in homes across the nation".  The campaign attempts to reach gun owners with a message of safe storage, but massively fails at the attempt as it uses misleading statistics to try to make the point that 8 kids a day die (that's almost 3000 a year) each year from improperly stored firearms.

It's not surprising that this Public Service Announcement (PSA) campaign would take this approach as the campaign is produced by the AdCouncil, which was also responsible for a "safe storage" PSA campaign funded by the Obama administration and produced in collaboration with the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC).  That series of ads included kids saying, if you store your guns safely "I won't be scared."  Based on numbers from the National Safety Council Injury Facts 2014 Edition, the total number of unintentional firearms related deaths in 2012 was only 600 - that 's total, not just children.  So to get anywhere near the number that the "End Family Fire" campaign uses they must be including suicides in the total.  Suicide brings a completely different set of issues with it besides just the availability of firearms.

VSSA supports NSSF's Project ChildSafe initiative which encourages gun owners to store their firearms properly when not in use.  It's successful and the record low numbers of unintentional firearm related fatalities is proof.  Brady and Ad Council should leave the messaging of safe storage to people who know guns and gun owners.

Update: NSSF has a blog post pointing out how the Ad Council and Brady have mis-fired in their new ad.

NCPC and Bureau of Justice Assistance Team Up to Encourage Private Sellers to Use FFLs for Gun Sales

Today, the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) and the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) launched a new public awareness campaign that encourages individuals to use a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) when selling firearms from their private collection.  This is something that was already available to people but NCPC believes not many people are aware of this option.  It is not a change in policy and is similar to what Governor McAuliffe and Republican leadership agreed to earlier this year in Virginia in that it is totally voluntary.

The campaign, titled Sell with Certainty, uses a combination of print media, web ads, and a radio PSA to distribute the message that background checks are the only way to make sure your buyer is truly able to own a firearm.

This is the second time since 2013 that NCPC and BJA have teamed up to put out PSAs related to firearms.  The first was a little more of what you would have expected from the government with scary images about kids getting their hands on guns and encouraging gun owners to "Lock it Up."  This campaigns appears to have gone the other direction and attempts to be apolitical and more informational.

It should be noted that FFLs don't usually provide this service for free.

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.