An indoor shooting range located in Montgomery, Alabama stepped in it when they posted an image of a baby holding a gun on their Facebook page. The controversial image, which provoked a flurry of criticism from a wide variety of people – even ammosexuals – shows the infant lying on a camouflage blanket with the pistol in his right hand while surrounded by 6 larger guns.
After a local news station contacted the gun range, the image was removed, and the owners of the range went into damage control mode. They claim that they do not even condone the image, and only posted it to start a discussion over gun safety.
Lilly Ann Gibbs, who along with her husband Frank Manuel owns the Montgomery Indoor Shooting Complex, explained why they posted the image.
“Primarily here at Montgomery Indoor Shooting Complex, we promote firearm safety, so in order to stimulate a little dialogue, we put a controversial picture in effort to get people’s feedback and get some awareness about that topic.”
Even if that statement is true, it’s in extremely poor taste.
Would it be appropriate to post a picture of a baby with a cigarette in his or her hand to spur discussion on the dangers of smoking?
How about if the baby was holding a can of beer? Or a bag of weed?
We get that there are a lot of stupid, irresponsible gun owners out there – too many, in fact – and the image itself likely came from one of those people, but excuse us if we don’t buy the explanation offered by Gibbs for the insipid Facebook post. By all accounts, the image was posted without an accompanying message about gun safety, or any message at all.
And here’s another reason why Gibb’s statement rings hollow…
This image was also posted on the Facebook page of the shooting range. It’s pretty clear that the agenda here isn’t about gun safety, it’s about indoctrinating kids with guns to create future NRA-bots.
After the baby holding a gun post was taken down, a “Project Child Safe” link was put up on the gun range Facebook page along with a video link.
As Gibbs explained:
“In the Journal of Pediatrics, they estimate that 10,000 children are harmed by firearms a year. And so we at Montgomery Indoor Shooting Complex are participating with the national shooting sports foundation in a child safe program.”
“10,000 children” is way, way too many. And there are too many tragic incidents like the recent one in an Idaho Wal-Mart, and far too many people claiming that the gun owning parent was not acting irresponsibly.
Watch the local news report from WPTV.
