WASHINGTON (Rooters agency) – “Guns don’t kill people. Criminals, lunatics, political extremists, grudge holders, people who don’t like loud music, small children and accident-prone people who happen to have a gun nearby kill people,” said National Weapons Association President Barry Bogus III. “It’s time for our politicians to stop blaming innocent weapons and covering up for the real culprits.”
Mr. Bogus was speaking at today’s official launch of a new NWA campaign, titled “Presumption of Innocence.” The campaign seeks to counter advocacy of gun-control laws by stressing “the right of everyone, including guns, to be considered innocent until proven guilty.”
“When the Founders were writing the Bill of Rights,” he pointed out, “they didn’t put in any exceptions. They didn’t say: ‛This right applies to everyone except guns.’
“And I would like to point out an important fact that is often ignored by those who would trample on the Constitution in the name of so-called ‛safety’: In the entire history of the United States, there is not a single instance of a jury convicting a gun of deliberately injuring, let alone killing, anyone.”
An information booklet produced as part of the NWA campaign argues: “If guns, rather than people, are responsible for killings, how could it be that killings occurred frequently over many centuries before the invention of guns?”
The NWA was responding to concerns raised as a result of some unfortunate accidents involving children, Mr. Bogus said, by proposing a program called National Users Training Safety. This would be federally mandated weapons training “to provide all citizens with knowledge of gun safety through familiarity and experience with weapons.”
While the program would apply to all citizens, Mr. Bogus said it would focus most attention on the young, “because we all learn more easily when we’re young.” Most training would be completed “before the age of 10, and would begin at perhaps five or six months after conception.”
Questioned by surprised reporters as to how in utero training might be carried out, Mr. Bogus assured them, “The claim that we support fetal arming is a ridiculous exaggeration by the gun suppression lobby. What we propose is that the fetus be prepared for life in a gun-safe modern world through the periodic playing of recorded gunfire adjacent to the mother’s womb.
“This experience will mean that newborns will not be alarmed by the noise of weapons fire and will therefore be able to begin their training in gun use and safety at an earlier age than would otherwise be the case.”
He added that pre-birth weapons familiarity would have benefits for the parents, who “would no longer have to tiptoe around and avoid shooting intruders or wild animals for fear of frightening wimpy kids.”
The NWA is confident that National Users Training Safety “can very quickly eliminate nearly all cases of accidental killing by under-threes. After the training, if kids kill someone, we’ll know it’s deliberate – and certainly not the fault of the gun.”
News From Somewhere 