Not only does the gun industry not care about mass shootings in schools—or synagogues or grocery stores or churches or anywhere for that matter—now they appear to be targeting kids. A gun trade show in Las Vegas is hosting a manufacturer called WEE1 Tactical, which markets what they call the JR-15—an AR-15 rifle designed for children, but “Just like Mom and Dad’s gun.”
John Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, tells The New Republic, “WEE1 Tactical has adopted this supposedly kinder, gentler marketing approach because it knows from experience that most Americans are shocked and disgusted by the idea of manufacturing semiautomatic assault rifles designed for grade schoolers.”
For the record, AR-15s were used in the 2021 Sandy Hook massacre, the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting, the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, and the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
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To those of us who aren’t fans of this nation’s outrageous gun culture, given the massive number of gun deaths that happen every day in the U.S., the timing of the Vegas show seems out of touch.
In early January, a 6-year-old child in Newport News, Virginia, took a gun from his home, brought it to school, and promptly shot and wounded his teacher with it.
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Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones told CNN, “There’s a lot of questions that we have to answer as a community,” including “how a 6-year-old was able to have a gun (and) know how to use it in such a deliberate manner … The individuals responsible will be held accountable. I can promise that.”
Just this past weekend, a father in Indiana was arrested after his toddler son (still in diapers) was seen on Ring doorbell security video walking the halls of the family’s apartment complex with a loaded handgun.
Shane E. Osborne, 45, was arrested Saturday, NBC News reports after neighbors called the authorities. The toddler was seen carrying Osborne’s Smith & Wesson semi-automatic handgun, police said.
"My son, he opened the door and then shut it and backed away, and he was like, 'Uh...baby with a gun. Get out of here, get out of here!' Then, I looked through the peephole,” neighbor Nicole Summers told WTHR-13 in Beech Grove, Indiana. “He [the child] was standing in the middle of the hallway, and he was just kind of holding it behind his back, and I thought … like that's a real gun. I sell guns for a living, so I know what a gun looks like."
Meanwhile, Joede Vanek, a failed Republican candidate who ran for state senate in Montana but lost in the 2022 June primary, has no qualms about teaching his 6-year-old son how to shoot a handgun.
“Toy guns are the way to prepare your children for shooting … 85% of what you can learn about firearms, you can learn with a toy,” Vanek said in an interview last year.
But in his recent video, Vanek wasn’t using a toy, apparently—unless toy guns now come complete with an extra magazine.
*Please note: An earlier version of this article mentioned that a Virginia teacher was killed, which was written in error. The teacher was wounded, not killed.
