The Virginia Center for Public Safety (formerly Virginians Against Handgun Violence), lead by gun control advocate Andrew Goddard, seems to be upset not so much that children are being taught to stay away from guns in schools, but that the NRA is teaching it. You can see him debate Rachel Parsons, from NRA’s Public Affairs, here on Fox:
This has always been a particularly sad tactic of our opponents. Using gun accidents to push their agenda, then getting bent out of shape when we step up to try to do something about gun accidents. All because they don’t like who the message is coming from.
Unfortunately Goddard just wants to pretend that all those icky guns don’t exist, and that is obvious in his talking points. His naked hatred for the NRA is quite evident.
Strange, how he equates his college-age son’s murder by a psycho who criminally abused guns with toddler and pre-school accidents, though.
That guy just managed to sound like a complete idiot.
This is a rough case for me.
I know Andy Goddard; he happens to ride the same motorcycle as I, and belongs (loosely) to the same ‘club’ as I. I’ve talked to him at length ….. he’s lived an interesting life, and he is a truly good guy.
Except for his views of firearms. Now, besides the fact that his son, Colin, was shot at VT (he is still alive, doing the gunshow undercover video for the Brady’s), he is also from England, so he’s not culturally disposed to see the benefits to firearm ownership.
And in spite if his being a nice guy, I have to agree that he’s wrong about firearms.
I understand, and I’m not saying anything about the guy personally. In the spirit of a previous post, my disagrement with him is on a political level.
I know many people who support gun control that are good people and fine Americans.
The entire Eddie Eagle approach takes the focus off the real issue which is parents leaving guns where kids can encounter them. There’s nothing wrong with teaching kids “don’t touch,” per se, unless you want to argue that it only increases their curiosity, but the real problem is the gun owners. Why don’t you put the responsibility where it belongs – with the gun owning parents, not their kids.
Again with the not-thinking, MikeB302000. Who’s saying people SHOULD leave guns lying around?
Of course every ADULT class will teach people to properly store their firarms, but are you suggesting that the class should also teach children? No of course not, you’re just a troll.
The head in the sand approach is EXACTLY what gets people killed. I’m 100% aware that you know that, and you would prefer children get killed because it will allow you to get more ill-gotten attention.
Even in a place where guns are banned this training is STILL valuable.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/08/05/crime_consumed_a_family_and_an_8_year_old_is_lost/
Two kids playing at a family function, find underage drug-dealer brother’s gun (Kinda like the illegal guns you admitted to owning), not knowing the danger they played with it. Of course criminals don’t take gun safety training either, so the gun was not only illegally possessed, but it was illegally stored, and loaded, and now we have a dead boy.
And you’re just fine with that.
This is your fault MikeB302000, the blood is on your hands.
I have helped put the Eddie Eagle program in one elementary school. The anti-gun people make it sound like the program is trying to teach young kids how to shoot and join the NRA. The NRA is never mentioned and the only way that anyone would even know that it is an NRA program is the Point of contact information on the back of the material.
My local high school has a requirement that all seniors have to have a group project to benefit the local community. The kids don’t actually have to do the project but they have to do all of the research. Normally the kids try to have a stop sign installed or an abandoned building cleaned up but my daughter’s group wanted to do something different. After talking about what to do my daughter brought up the Eddie Eagle Program and they decided to do that. The have given the program to an after school group and the local Jr. ROTC program has said that they will start doing it in the local schools.
Handgun Control, aka Brady, has no program except for teachers to teach that all guns are bad. For all of their “we are only about gun safety” talk, the anti-gun groups have no program like Eddie Eagle and the one time that they did try to do something it sounded like the Eddie Eagle Program.
george
“The anti-gun people make it sound like the program is trying to teach young kids how to shoot and join the NRA.”
And they will do all they can to propagate this misinformation because as Bitter has reported here, they’re running out of money, and their past fund raisers have been powered by the blood of children.
Nobody has ever claimed they want MORE gun deaths, accidents, or crime. Just the opposite, on our face, both side are proclaiming our mission to LESSEN these horrible things.
The data shows that one of our methods is successful, the other archives just the opposite.
Many people on the anti-gun side have read the reports and seen the data, as well as the anecdotes. Be these people be people like Paul Helmke or Josh Sugarmann, or people like MikeB302000.
They choose to push lies for whatever their reasons may be. I think that is evil.
A couple of things come to my mind.
Just like a doctor should not be able to perform surgery on a family member, this man should not be on the national spotlight for this type of discussion. If CeaseFire, or Brady want to argue this, they should. Take emotion out of the issue. Let the 2 arguments come from experts. The left loves to bring out the emotionally connected people and attempt to tug at the heart strings of it’s supporters. In these cases, every time, I seek out the facts more thoroughly.
This short interview made the man look like he didn’t know what he wanted. Again, his emotion and my sympathies aside, he should have left this to the pros.
MikeB wrote: There’s nothing wrong with teaching kids “don’t touch,†per se, unless you want to argue that it only increases their curiosity, but the real problem is the gun owners.
If there is nothing wrong with it, then why are so many people (you included) fighting it? In my opinion it is blind hatred of the NRA and nothing else. There is no magic bullet for reducing gun accidents. It is going to have to be a multi-pronged effort. And then at the end of the day, you are still going to have accidents. But burying your head in the sand and fighting AGAINST efforts to do so serves no one and makes others question your goals.
“The entire Eddie Eagle approach takes the focus off the real issue which is parents leaving guns where kids can encounter them. […] but the real problem is the gun owners. Why don’t you put the responsibility where it belongs – with the gun owning parents, not their kids.”
Because that’s not the point of this particular program. There are other programs for that. Teaching parents to properly secure their firearms is a completely separate goal to be pursued in addition to teaching young children “don’t touch.”
Telling 8 year-old kids about how their parents should be properly securing their guns is not only pointless, it’s dangerous because it can tempt young children to “help” their parents by trying to secure any unattended guns themselves – with the expected risk of tragedy created when small children attempt to handle firearms unsupervised. It undermines the “don’t touch” message.
You don’t teach the children what the parents should do, you teach them what they should do. The safety class I took in middle school – geared toward and taught to young teens approaching the age they could legally go hunting – did cover proper storage. It was a class for people who were old enough to worry about storage, and actually be able to do something about it. I’m pretty sure most basic gun safety classes do.
It’s also worth noting that it really is who the message is coming from, not what the message actually is. The organization that got named as an “alternative” source in the legislation (before the governor got it changed back to one source) uses Brady and other openly anti-gun organizations as primary sources for many issues, perpetuates the “gun show loophole” myth, and supports gun “buybacks.” On top of that, they were never actually asked if they wanted to be used as a source, and openly stated that they had not updated their program in “years” and had no plans for doing so in the future.
Oh, yeah. Their program is, oddly enough, almost exactly the same as Eddie Eagle.
Packetman, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, based on your acquaintance with him. I could have been gentler in the way I said what I said. However, the bias was still there.
Nice to hear that his son survived. I was under the impression that he had been killed.
Yes, imagine the chutzpah – using examples of gun violence to make a case for gun laws. What nonsense. That’s as ridiculous as using auto accidents as an excuse for requiring seatbelts. Will the madness never end?
Ok, Peter, because obviously you’re a super-honest guy, and totally not trolling this blog, and are offering your opinion to attempt to convince us of the error of our ways.
How could this latest “gunshow Loophole” law have stopped Cho from killing and wounding all those people in Virginia tech?
I mean seat belts have been pretty conclusive to reduce fatalities in auto accidents by keeping the occupants from violently smashing around the inside of the car during an impact.
Of course a dishonest person would make the assessment that mandatory seat belt laws will lower the incidence of fender benders and speeding infractions.
They have no choice, they HAVE to lie. Seems a bit evil if you ask me.
Peter:
Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. You need to take the sentence as a whole. What I frown on is not using gun accidents to push your agenda. I expect that and would do the same in your shoes. But don’t use accidents to push your agenda then try to get in the way when we try to do something about that particular problem. I’d expect you’d still want to push legal solutions in addition, but I don’t think anyone ought to disagree that education is a bad thing because they don’t like who’s doing it.
And for some of the other respondents, like MikeB, I agree that adult education is a component of reducing accidents as well, and NRA has an extensive program for that too.
Gun accidents have been dropping, and largely because of education efforts, and developing a culture of promoting safety around the shooting sports.
Crotalus,
No blood, no foul.
Probably like you, I have a relatively dim view about people who constantly harp about guns, and that their solutions will only affect me, and not the criminals.
Andy’s case just reminds me that getting one of those phone calls can happen to the best people, and it sometimes does strange things.
Hey, the guy did say that he was in favor of gun safety education, but wass against mandating it and against the NRA, who he obviously hates. I heard him speak once in Richmond after he listened to the NRA and other groups defending the gun rights of domestic abusers, child abusers, gang members and drunk drivers all in the same week at the Virginia assembly – man was he pissed. Good job he didn’t have agun or he’d ev shot em all.
“Strange, how he equates his college-age son’s murder by a psycho who criminally abused guns with toddler and pre-school accidents, though.”
So you limit toddler and preschool accidents by teaching elementary school kids about gun safety – if they live that long! That’s what I call strange!
Yeah, because NRA clearly stands for all those things.
“NRA and other groups defending the gun rights of domestic abusers, child abusers, gang members and drunk drivers all in the same week at the Virginia assembly – man was he pissed. ”
I don’t ever recall anyone advocating such things on our side, unless you’re referring to restoring the gun rights of those who have been PARDONED…
“Good job he didn’t have agun or he’d ev shot em all.”
nice use of projection.
“Peter Hamm Said,
May 3rd, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Yes, imagine the chutzpah – using examples of gun violence to make a case for gun laws. What nonsense. That’s as ridiculous as using auto accidents as an excuse for requiring seatbelts. Will the madness never end?”
Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Center to Prevent??
I always wanted to ask you a question. Because you support the 2nd Amendment and only want to pass and enforce sensible federal and state gun laws, regulations, and support common sense gun laws and you are not against people owning guns; what gun do you recommend for home protection in a house with only adults and no children? Thanks, I await your response.
PS one additional question. What is the maximum amount one should have to pay on a per year basis for a license to own a handgun and after the amount you choose, that would be an infringement on a person’s Second Amendment right.
Hello…Rachel Parsons NRA spokesperson Hottie, my question to you m’am is what caliber do you enjoy shooting the most and where would you like to have dinner with me at?
And Petey is too scared to actually talk shop with us. I think he’s worried about being exposed as a liar and a whore.
Don’t worry Pete, you have nothing to hide. Anybody who knows your name knows what you are.
Sorry. I get busy and don’t have the time I’d like to exchange thoughts.
Sebastian, my problem with this thing is it’s shameful for the new Virginia Governor to say that the only program that can be used to teach gun safety is the NRA’s. That’s ridiculous, and it’s government giving a huge windfall to a special interest. I would find it just as shameful if New Jersey passed a law saying that Brady Campaign materials HAVE to be used to teach about guns there. The good government part really irks me about this.
I know, I know, you’ll say its because it’s the NRA. And you’re wrong. We shouldn’t tell teachers how to teach unless it’s very clear they need to be told.
You want gun safety education in schools, with an opt-out for parents who don’t want it? Great. Go for it. But don’t have an advocacy group on either side write the textbook. That’s absurd.
I’m not in favor of making Eddie Eagle mandatory curriculum, but with the caveat that I believe that kind of thing should be political neutral, which Eddie Eagle is. I would favor a choice of programs which are politically neutral.
Peter,
Your comment doesn’t make much sense. What does it matter who writes a program if the program itself isn’t biased? What would you change that would (1) make the program more effective and (2) wouldn’t introduce bias?
If there isn’t anything you’d change then your “principled position” is revealed as mere sophistry.
In fact, it could reasonably be interpreted as jealousy that the NRA will get some sort of “credit” for neutrally promoting gun safety without glorifying or demonizing the gun while Brady, lacking a truly unbiased teaching program of their own, can only repeat their “guns are bad, mmmkay” mantra.
If the NRA offered Brady a “co-sponsership” of the exact same program would that be acceptable to you? Both logos on the material?
It certainly would go a long way toward providing as yet unseen support for your claim that Brady is “for reasonable gun rights” as opposed to merely the same tired old gun banners with a fresh coat of paint.