The current tactic of the anti-gun, anti-civil rights advocates is to attack youth shooting. The tactics aim to make it difficult to teach kids how to shoot and handle firearms safely. The idea is fairly simple: they cloak it in gun safety, but ultimately, they are attempting to use the same tactics used to eliminate tobacco use. While eliminating tobacco use seems reasonable, guns are no cigarettes. Cigarettes can’t be safely used by youth shooters, but guns most certainly can.
I don’t like Ronald Reagan and his numerous anti-gun stances, but he was right when he said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day, we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States, where men were free.”
If you can kill youth shooting or make it absurdly difficult, then you can slowly kill firearms rights. If no one shoots, then no one cares, and the gun control industry wins when we stop caring. Gun rights advocates make it one of the biggest concerns, but even for most anti-gun people, it doesn’t rank in the top ten. Apathy is how they win, and by killing youth shooting they create apathy.
The Death Of Youth Shooting – The How
There has always been a bit of a move to kill youth shooting, but it didn’t become a major mainstream idea until 2022. In 2022, Remington Arms settled a lawsuit with a number of Sandy Hook families. However, Remington was also going out of business, and I don’t doubt they settled it so they could complete the proceedings rather than spend more money they didn’t have on lawyers.
The basis of this lawsuit stated that Remington’s marketing targeted younger, at-risk males. The proof of this appears to be that admittedly cringe-worthy ad about reissuing a man card. Remington’s settlement caused waves, and the anti-gun industry spotted a supposed weakness, and they attacked. They are doing the same with Daniel Defense after Uvalde. Their evidence is a tweet and the presence of DD’s guns in video games.
This fear of lawsuits based on advertising have deeply affected the industry. When companies loan you guns, you typically sign something. It might be an NDA, an agreement about the terms of the loan, and more. One such industry clause I’ve seen essentially says, “Don’t tell people we intend this firearm to be used by shooters under the age of 18/21.”
A friend employed by a major firearm industry quickly pointed out that things like youth stocks don’t exist anymore. Youth anything is largely gone. It’s been replaced with terms like ‘short’ or Bantam. I used to tell people to buy a Hogue Youth stock for their shotgun to reduce the length of pull.
That doesn’t exist anymore. Now, they just list the length of the LOP.
Going Beyond
The effect has rippled across the industry. When Wee1 Tactical released the JR-15, an AR look-alike rifle that’s designed to be super small to target the youth shooting market, these rifles were 20% smaller than your standard AR, but were admittedly adorable. At 2.2 pounds with an adjustable stock, they could fit the smallest of shooters.
They were molded to represent and replicate a real AR but used a simple blowback system. In the end, they were just like any other semi-auto .22LR. They just looked like an AR, and we all know the anti-gun industry bases most of its arguments on cosmetic features. The JR-15 drew the ire of federal politicians, including Chuck Schumer, a man who definitely knows how to grill burgers.
He called upon the FTC to investigate Wee1 Tactical. I spoke with the owners at SHOT Show. They ditched the JR-15 idea. The heat was too high, and the owner of the company felt he was drawing heat to the entire industry.
To be fair, if the FTC investigated JR-15, we might have another precedent set, and I can understand why he didn’t want to do that. With that in mind, check out Mountain Billy Gun Lab. It might have caused even greater problems with youth shooting in the long term.
Should We Capitilate?
Obviously, the answer is no. We need to push back, and we need to push back at a grassroots level. Rebel in a way they can’t control, and how do we do that? We teach kids to shoot. We volunteer at organizations that teach actual gun safety. Become Project Appleseed instructors. In fact, Project Appleseed is the perfect example of rebellion.
Youth shooting can’t die with a whimper. If it does, our gun rights will fade into oblivion. Fight, rebel, and teach your kids to shoot and handle firearms safely. It’s our way forward.
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