What Real Gun Safety Looks Like (And It’s Not From Bloomberg)

By Steve Sanetti

What Real Gun Safety Looks Like
What Real Gun Safety Looks Like
National Shooting Sports Foundation
National Shooting Sports Foundation

NEWTOWN, Conn –-(Ammoland.com)- With media giving attention to yet another Michael Bloomberg-funded gun-control organization calling itself a gun “safety” group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation feels compelled to point out that credible, effective firearm safety efforts don’t involve divisive tactics, sanctimonious rhetoric and videos designed to frighten parents away from responsible firearm ownership.

Everytown for Gun Safety, the new umbrella group for Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Shannon Watts’ Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, will use an estimated $50 million in Bloomberg’s funds to pursue legislation that will do little to actually enhance firearm safety but instead would create a host of additional barriers to gun ownership by law-abiding Americans.

The new group’s unstated mission might well be “Everytown Without Guns.” It has no credibility with gun owners.

NSSF and the firearms industry have for decades been conducting effective safety initiatives that do not restrict the rights of law-abiding gun owners. Our safety programs and those of other organizations have helped drive down firearms accidents to historic low levels, decreasing by 22 percent in the last 10 years. Less than 1 percent of all fatal accidents in the U.S. involve a firearm.

Real gun safety looks like this:

  • 70 million gun locks included with new firearms in the last 15 years
  • 36 million free firearm safety kits that include a gun lock distributed in communities through NSSF’s Project ChildSafe program, in partnership with 15,000 law enforcement departments
  • 3.6 million requests for firearm safety materials fulfilled by NSSF in 2013 alone. Communities regularly turn to NSSF for its expertise and materials successfully promoting safe firearms handling and secure storage.

“Own It? Respect It. Secure It.” is the new campaign of Project ChildSafe. Help us spread this important safety message.

Only 1.5 percent of accidental fatalities among children 14 and under involve a firearm, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Motor vehicles, suffocation, drowning, fires, poisoning and falls rank ahead of firearms.

Any needless death is a tragedy. But we are the ones actually doing something about firearms safety and preventing accidents. Even at $50 million, talk is cheap.

About NSSFThe National Shooting Sports Foundation is the trade association for the firearms industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of more than 6,000 manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations and publishers. For more information, log on to www.nssf.org.

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TyrannyOfEvilMen

If you have children in the home, obviously you should keep your firearms properly secured. When it is appropriate, you should teach your children about firearms safety.

But let’s be honest: If these anti-liberty types really cared about preventing accidental deaths of children, they would lobby for swimming pool inspections and mandatory training classes and licensing for swimming pool owners. Doing so would save many more children, and no one has a constitutionally guaranteed right to own a swimming pool.