Nonfiction blog post "Selling A New Generation On Guns" by Mike McINTIRE

The article “Selling New Generations On Guns” the main idea is about how the firearms industry has recently poured thousands of dollars into a campaign to ensure its future by getting guns into the hands of more, and younger children. In this article Mike McINTIRE talks about how the industry’s strategies include “giving firearms, ammunition and cash to youth groups; weakening state restrictions on hunting by young children; marketing an affordable military-style rifle for junior shooters and sponsoring semiautomatic-handgun competitions for youths; and developing a target shooting video game that promotes brand-name weapons, with links to the web sites of their makers.”  McINTIRE goes on to talk about how some people say that it is a good thing to introduce kids to guns. Some even said that teaching kids how to handle guns helps them learn some life skills like responsibility, ethics and citizenship. Finally he talks about how the NRA for decades has given grants for youth shooting programs, mostly to Boy Scout councils and 4-H groups.

In this article the I think that the author wants you to feel informed and a little shocked. I mean thinking about this situation logically makes me feel outraged. How dare these people be encouraging young children to use guns especially because of what recently happened in Newtown. The author does a good job of sort of expressing his own opinions secretly in the article. He is able to do this because throughout the whole article he is giving facts about this issue and how the firearms industry is trying to get young people to use guns, but then at the very last line of the article he puts in a quote from the director of undergraduate studies in child and adolescent mental health at New York University saying “There are lots of ways to teach responsibility to a kid, you don’t need a gun to do it.” Because this is the last line of the article, it allows you to really think about the information you were just given, and it gives you time to realize how incredibly ridiculous the whole idea of giving young kids guns is. 

After reading this article my opinions about guns and gun control have stayed the same but also gotten bigger and stronger. Every time I think about guns in this country and about what happened in Newtown I get so angry there are no words to describe. After what happened couldn’t these people have a little more decency??? It just infuriates me. I mean why in the world would you want to introduce guns to kids? It’s so dangerous and unnecessary. There is already too much violence in this world, do we really want or need young children knowing how to use a handgun? The NRA is so small minded. Although after what happened at Newtown they didn’t make a statement until a little after the fact, do you want to know why? It was probably so they wouldn’t look bad. The idea of children having guns seems crazy to me. It’s oh yeah my child doesn’t know how to ride a bike yet but he knows how to operate a gun. Children in this day in age are already growing up faster and faster do we really need to add guns to the mix? People think it will teach kids responsibility? How in the world would it do that? In my opinion teaching kids how to be good citizens is talking to them having them read things learn things, not handing them guns. People are acting like guns aren’t a big deal but they are a huge deal. The firearms industry is making it seem like guns are fun. They even hold competitions for it. In reality guns aren’t fun and games. They are dangerous weapons used to kill that should not be in the hands of a young child.