Guns Marketed Directly to Kids!
by John Lawrence
Caroline Sparks, age 2, was fatally shot in the chest by her brother Kristian who had been given “My First Rifle” by his parents. The mother had stepped outside for a minute when the gun went off.
Officials identified the single-shot rifle as a Crickett, which is produced by Keystone Sporting Arms in Pennsylvania. This is a gun designed specifically for children four to ten years old and comes in hot pink for girls and a variety of other colors including a red, white and blue swirl. These guns are directly marketed to kids just like Happy Meals or Barbie dolls.
The website www.cricket.com has been taken down and they’re not answering their phones.
The mother said in a TV interview that her daughter was in a “better place.” Really? How does she know what place her daughter is in? She might be in a worse place or no place at all. What’s the sense in having children if, when they are killed, we can all rejoice that they are in a ‘better place.’ No, the mother should be charged with reckless endangerment of a child for letting her five year old play with a loaded gun.
And it was an accident. Really? How do we know that? Maybe the five year old was pissed at the two year old and was just waiting for the mother to step outside to pour grease out of a frying pan in order to off his sibling.
But these “accidents” are passed off as the price we have to pay for keeping up our “heritage.” It’s worth it, these gun nuts say, because after all, even if some children are killed, they will go to a better place. Awww, we can all have a good cry, but please don’t suggest there’s something wrong with letting children play with loaded guns.
After all, in Kentucky kids are taught how to shoot at an early age. And they are not sexist there. Girls are treated equally with boys when it comes to guns.
Bob Ceska at the Daily Banter wrote in an article A Gun Designed Specifically for Kids: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?:
“We’re not talking about a B-B gun here, which more than a few kids have owned in spite of the potential to, you know, shoot your eye out. The Crickett is an actual rifle that fires actual .22 caliber rounds. Just to give you a point of reference in case you’re not familiar with what a .22 caliber round is capable of: Bobby Kennedy was assassinated by a gunman firing a .22 caliber bullet. Ronald Reagan and James Brady, along with a Secret Service Agent and a police officer, were also shot by .22 caliber bullets fired by assassin John Hinckley. Brady, for his part, nearly died from his head wound and never walked again. So yeah, the Crickett [is] considerably more powerful than a B-B gun. Why? I have no blessed idea. But somewhere there’s a board room full of sociopaths, not to mention parents, who honestly believe that children need to be packing deadly fire power.”
And now a cute little two year old is dead- but not due to negligence on the mother’s part, mind you.
Guns are part of our heritage and Cricket wants to put a gun in every four year old’s hands. We have to get them acclimated to the American way of life, don’t you know. Then when they’ve graduated from high school and there’s no jobs available, they’ll be ready for the military where jobs, health care and even college will be available to them, and all that early childhood training in how to handle a gun will really come in handy.
The gun culture in this country is out of control, thanks to the NRA which is just a shill for the gun manufacturers. Gun manufacturers’ profits are up, no doubt thanks to expanding the gun market to children who now clamor for a real gun for Christmas or their birthday since they are marketed directly to them.
Just think … the equivalent of a gun wielding Ronald MacDonald or a Mr. Rogers touting cute, cuddly .22 rifles made especially for you, kids, and in an assortment of vibrant colors. Pink trains for girls didn’t go over so well when Lionel introduced them, but pink guns? Something every girl wants along with gun toting Barbie!
The Pennsylvania-based maker of Crickett rifles, Keystone Sporting Arms, markets its guns with the slogan “My First Rifle.” Business is booming at KSA. In its first year (1996), it had four employees and produced 4,000 rifles; by 2008 it had greatly expanded its operations, with 70 employees and an output of 60,000 rifles a year.
The “kids corner” on the KSA website shows young children in various poses with guns some of which some parents might find disturbing. Guess that’s why they’ve taken down the website. And just remember … no matter how bad the economy gets, children have a right to own a gun. We parents will always find the money for that. They’re American citizens after all. They might have to forego a trip to the dentist, but that’s no big deal down in Kentucky.
Even though 90% of the American people want background checks, Republican Congressmen and women such as Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire vote against them.
In a townhall meeting she soberly explained that voting for background checks could lead to that most dreaded of government infringements on our liberty, a national registry. Quelle horreur! We can’t have that.
You mean like the database the IRS has of every taxpayer or the state has of registered motor vehicles? A national registry like this would be the end of the world. Every citizen at the Town Hall meeting backs down after that explanation as if we all collectively would never want to go there … to a national registry? It’s self-evident just like that the Creator endowed us with inalienable rights such as the right to own a gun … regardless of age! No one would question that, would they?
Tell all this bullshit to the Newtown parents and all the other parents who have lost children to senseless gun violence and the promotion thereof. Are they comforted by the fact that their children are in a ‘better place’ and does this make for an equivalency with saving and glorying in our gun shooting heritage?
Is our heritage more important than one child? Obviously, the NRA and all the gun promoting Republicans vote ‘Yes’ to that.
From Mother Jones:
“… the Crickett Firearms website was shut down, and it remains unavailable. This morning I called Keystone Sporting Arms and was referred to attorney John Renzulli, who spoke on behalf of the company: He said that the Crickett Firearms site had been “inundated and corrupted” by a surge of visitors and had been shut down by the hosting service. “We’re working hard with the host to get the site up again,” he said, though he declined to specify when it would be restored. (It’s an intriguing explanation given that Crickett’s accounts on Facebook and Twitter have also since disappeared.)
“Renzulli acknowledged that the accidental death of the two-year-old girl in Kentucky had stirred strong emotions, but said that it was not an appropriate time to continue the debate about gun control. “This is not about Crickett Firearms [Ed. note: Yes, it really is.],” he said. “We need to respect the privacy of these people, this family is going through a lot. We’re not going to analyze and evaluate what happened here until a full investigation has been conducted by law enforcement. At that point we’ll comment.”
John Lawrence
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The shooting death of that little girl is not “sad.” It is tragic, and there is a profound difference between the two. The tree of purported liberty is being watered with the blood of innocents. These child sacrifices are viewed as “sad” but evidently unavoidable by a segment of our population- including the family of some of these children.
Those of us who question that position are upbraided for not understanding the significance of cherished tradition. This position draws a line yet again between the imagined real Americans- tradition and liberty loving folk– and everyone else. If this becomes the framing story of that child’s death, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that a safety lock on the gun would have saved Caroline’s life. Households which do not secure guns are guilty of child endangerment. That needs to be the focus of the discussion.
Anna, I completely agree. The family treated the gun as just another toy. Guns need to be locked up except when they are used under proper supervision. You can get a ticket for not putting a child in a car seat, but letting a child play with a loaded gun carries with it no penalty, evidently.
The NRA and other cultists are basically arguing that guns should not be controlled. They’ll actually say the words. The only way to counter this embrace of patriotic blood and gore is to say, simply, Guns Are Out Of Control.
I am from that same rual area where my dad was a Kentucky State Trooper for 25 years and I remember shooting a 22 rifle around the same age with my dad and at with my grandmother. There is nothing wrong with that! Gun safety has to be the biggest responsibility of owning a gun! It is not a toy! There were guns in my house all my life and no one was ever hurt, of course I knew better than to touch a gun without my dad! It is a part of who we are down here! Tragic things happen in life every day! The sad fact is that the 5 year old will have some cruel adolescent torment him years later over an accident.
Giving five year old lethal weapons is part of who you are “down here” huh? My brother committed suicide with a 22! I don’t understand why you folks feel the need to have a “gun culture” There have never been any guns in my house, and we have never had the need for them, so I wonder what kind of people live where you live, that you have the need for them. And rather than worry about “the sad fact that the 5 year old will be treated cruelly by others, he will have the nightmare in his head forever that he killed his little sister! How would you like to live with that!?!
t
Strange that when a bomber destroys lives and limbs it is his/her fault, but when some one is shot it is the guns fault. Tell me there is no agenda! Yes, anytime an innocent life is lost it is tragic – where were the parents. Anyone check mom’s cellphone to see if her stepping out at that time may be coincidental?
Anna is correct, the mother should be prosecuted.
Wes
The mother, reportedly, stepped outside to dump grease out of a frying pan. Does anyone question the fact that the gun went off precisely at that time. It might just as well have gone off prior to the Mom’s exit for as long as it takes to dump grease out of a frying pan, a few seconds presumably. It sort of looks fishy to me. I know everyone feels sorry for the Mom, but she is to blame first for not checking that the gun had no shells in it and second for leaving a child unsupervised with a gun in his hand and third for treating the gun as just another plaything.
most intelligent people would agree driving a car, voting, drinking alcohol and fighting in a war are among the activities children cannot do because of their lack of maturity. why would owning a firearm be considered appropriate for a child? if a child dies due to lack of supervision , the responsible adult is charged with endangerment to a minor, and should not be allowed to be responsible for any other children. perhaps the profit of firearm manufactures should not take precedent over intelligent decisions that protect the very life of children.
It should be noted that the Manchin-Toomey bill that was “defeated” with 54 votes in favor in the Senate specifically prohibited the creation of a national gun registry. Kelly Ayotte and her ilk are either willfully ignorant and have not bothered to actually read the bill, or they know better and just don’t care all in an effort to deliberately misinform the public. This, in less polite circles, is what’s known as “lying.”
“We’re not talking about a B-B gun here, which more than a few kids have owned in spite of the potential to, you know, shoot your eye out.”
– Bob Ceska
While most air rifles are chambered for .177 caliber pellets or dumbbell-shaped lead slugs, there are .22 caliber air rifles for the adult “varmint hunter” market….unlike the .177 pellet guns which fire rounds a 580 feet per second, the .22s do 1000 fps or more. My point is, these are not Nerf guns.