Recently, a 5 year old boy from Kentucky accidently shot and killed his 2 year old sister. The weapon was a 22-caliber “Cricket” known as “My First Rifle.” In 2008 the gun maker, Keystone Sporting Arms, sold 60,0000 such weapons aimed at “youth shooters.”
The website for the gun maker has a “kid’s corner where children can observe other happy children with firearms.
Other gun makers have similar ads aimed at children:
According to the NY Times this focus on younger shooters is a marketing decision.
Threatened by long-term declining participation in shooting sports, the firearms industry has poured millions of dollars into a broad campaign to ensure its future by getting guns into the hands of more, and younger, children.
The industry’s strategies include giving firearms, ammunition and cash to youth groups; weakening state restrictions on hunting by young children; marketing an affordable military-style rifle for “junior shooters” and sponsoring semiautomatic-handgun competitions for youths; and developing a target-shooting video game that promotes brand-name weapons, with links to the Web sites of their makers. -NY Times
Can anyone explain to me the difference between an ancient nation that sacrificed its children on a pyramid to improve crops, and a modern nation that sacrifices its children in the name of financial profit? This whole discussion seems insane to me. I was almost afraid to post this article for fear someone one would say if the two year old had been carrying a weapon she could have protected herself.
Unconscionable!!!!! Train them up to be killers??????