The Gun Lobby Remains Silent on Accidental Shootings

Americans frequently shoot themselves and others accidentally - often fatally. You would have thought that the NRA – an organization purportedly representing the interests of gun owners – would work to reduce this senseless violence. Perhaps the old NRA would have, but this current lot cannot afford to highlight this problematic side of gun ownership.

Should you mention that the NRA never publicly addresses accidental shootings, the gun absolutists will indignantly – and misleadingly – point to “Eddie Eagle’, the NRA’s gun safety character. Superficially this cartoonish figure has some safety cred – but it is only skin deepHe comes with two strikes. One, as critics maintain, is that he is a Trojan Horse. That he is to guns what Joe the Camel was to cigarettes. That is to say, he is a cynical promotional tool, foisted on impressionable kids, by an organization that has morphed from a gun-owner advocacy group t0 a marketing arm of the gun manufacturers.

These critics claim that Eddie’s role is to lure new customers to the gun industry. Certainly there is a Ronald McDonald cast to the smiling bird. But is the characterization fair?

To get at that truth let’s consider the second strike. The NRA is very vocal about gun ownership rights. Even going so far as to fret that a law banning the sale of ivory might make criminals out of the owners of ivory embellished guns. But as noisy as they are about the rights of gun owners they are silent on gun responsibility. Just try and find an NRA public service announcement addressing gun safety.

In addition to Eddie Eagle, the NRA trumpets its training. Indeed, the NRA was founded as an organization to teach marksmanship after  the disastrous performance of union riflemen in the Civil War. But safety and training are buried on their website. You can easily find its lobbying arm – and its store – but safety requires navigation.

It’s simple really. If reducing accidental shootings were a priority for the NRA they would talk about them publicly and feature solutions to them on their website. It doesn’t – because they aren’t.

To put the NRA’s approach to gun safety in perspective, imagine if the AMA had reacted to the dangers of smoking by staying silent. Then, when their passivity was challenged, they had reacted by huffily pointing to their website, with its cigarette warnings three clicks from its home page.

A reasonable person would question their commitment to reducing tobacco-caused illness. Especially if they had also lobbied to give the tobacco industry legal protection from product liability suits. And cowed the GOP into demanding that the CDC cease to research the connection between smoking and disease.

The truth is that the NRA – and its acolytes – will never pursue an aggressive path to reducing accidental shootings as long as their priority is to pursue a promiscuous view of the 2nd amendment.