Opinion By Larry Keane
California and Illinois laws that have banned advertising lawmakers in those two states consider 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.
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 doesn’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 policy 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.
Read Related:
Biden Administration’s Attack on Youth Hunting
Conservation Orgs File Intent to Sue Education Dept. Over Archery & Hunter Education Policies
About The National Shooting Sports Foundation
NSSF is the trade association for the firearm industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearm retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations, and publishers nationwide. For more information, visit nssf.org
This is a good place to say this…
I bought a gun last weekend off of a Ammoland advertiser. Kentucky Gun.
I saw it showed up today at my FFL… in my hands Wednesday morning, heading straight over there.
I’m a sucker for a deal.. I feel I can never have too many guns.
Like having too much money or too much fun… Only reason for not getting another is you’ve run out of room in the gun safe… and the new safe doesn’t get here until next week.
Or your wife threatens, “if you. buy one more gun…”
Don’t remember who said it, but the quote was something like, “When I die I fear my wife will sell my guns for what I told her they cost.”
better to have a wife that likes to shoot….downside ammo supply has to be replaced more often
A tip for anyone just getting into guns: buy the biggest safe you can, even if it means you have to wait a little longer to buy more guns. As a result of plandemic demand and Biden-flation, some safes cost literally twice what they did in early 2020.
or getting laid too much.
Or ammo or materials to reload.
when you have to sleep outside you have too many
Keeping guns and advertising about guns away from children is the only way to ensure the programming they’re uploading into the kids at school stays uninterrupted and has a chance to stick.
and then they feed them violent video games, makes sense …….no safety no hunting just urban kill games ..
With all the crap from California, it is interesting that a non-resident disabled veteran can get a Cali hunting license. They probably have not caught onto that yet.
There are two main reasons for all the new laws after Dobbs and Bruen. First, they are a gigantic F-U to the right for the Dobbs decision saying that abortion is an issue for the legislatures, not the courts. Second, the left is not willing to address the single cause that, if properly addressed, would reduce our violence rate to that of Norway. That cause is the ascendancy of the dystopian urban culture of ignorance, insolence, arrogance, and violence. Though usually associated with urban areas, this death culture is spreading among all demographics. Until we call it out for what… Read more »
a simple ruling that said a right is not regulable by government , would stop this and there would be a lot of people going after people that stole part of their life
This is a direct attack on the First Amendment, as well as the Second.
So, then…….I guess they will get right on banning all violent video games and cartoons next. Right? Because those are “aimed” at youth…
Too late, Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam have long since been disarmed. Along with the New England Patriot and the Tennessee Volunteer. And all the Indian names are gone, we now have the Cleveland Pussies and the Washington Rump Rangers.
but fsu is still seminoles … keep the hatchet chopping
Perfect example of how Democrats hate the first and second amendments . FJB and all Democrats and RINO gun grabbers . California and Illinois are both cess pools that are over flowing with crap they need the pumper truck to remove the contents of both states and dump it off at the nearest disposal site .
You left Washington, the worst 2A abused state in the Nation off your list, also Oregon isn’t very far behind Washington and Illinois.
Hell, I think oregonistan is the new west coast leader. Every bisexual/lesbian governess is trying to show that they have bigger balls then those nasty men governors.
You know how they are. It’s all about me and they don’t care who they destroy to show what a bad ass dyke they are. They bask in the glory of messing with other people’s heads and lives and controlling them from first to last breath.
Oregoneistan
that would be DC
Is there any amendment in the Bill of Rights that Democratics don’t hate? By “pumper truck” I assume you mean “one way tickets” and “disposal site[s]” to include Venezuela, Cuba, China, Russia, etc..
It’s an attack on BOTH 1A& 2A.