Sorry kids, uncle Bloomie and aunt Shannon forgot about you...

[sarisataka]

About one year ago Mike Bloomberg's organizations Everytown for Gun Safety and Mom's Demand Action launched, with some hoopla, a campaign to reduce unintentional child shootings BESMARTFORKIDS. http://momsdemandaction.org/in-the-news/everytown-and-moms-demand-action-release-notanaccident-index-and-launch-be-smart-campaign-to-reduce-unintentional-child-shootings/
They released a video featuring Melissa Joan Heart, provided info-graphics about unintentional shootings involving children, a quiz to test you and a promise to give away gun locks so people could secure their firearms. They ended the week of launch with the 3rd annual march across the Brooklyn Bridge

So here we are, a year later and what has happened? Well, nothing.

The video is still on Youtube. It is difficult to find so here is a link-

The info-graphics are available and updated. http://everytownresearch.org/NotAnAccident/ Public Relations Executives, like Ms Watts- once employed by Monsanto, like info-graphics. They are very effective at visually presenting data without bothering with any of those untidy details of how that data was derived. If one cares to dig into the links, many of the unintentional child shootings are actually quite intentional shootings stemming from gang violence and other criminal activity. Indeed more than a few of the children would be legally considered adults, having passed the age of eighteen, a some would be old enough to buy alcohol having reached the age of twenty-one. It can be supposed this is a simple series of oversights given that Bloomberg's groups also listed one of the Boston Bomber's as a "victim of gun violence."

The quiz asks five questions to see how well you know the information provided by ET/MDA and one actually pertaining to gun safety.

Lastly there is a random number generator next to the quiz. It says it represents the number of people who have taken the quiz and the number of locks that will be given away. Over the last year the number has gone up and down many times ranging between 1500 to over 40,000. For the last month it has been stuck on 25,274. Not a single lock has been given out or apparently even procured.

The 4th annual Brooklyn Bridge march completed and notable by its absence was any mention of BESMARTFORKIDS. No follow up as to how the campaign has saved lives, no celebrity announcements of support,nothing. Actually the BESMARTFORKIDS campaign is not even listed of the MDA's campaign page http://momsdemandaction.org/moms-demand-action-campaigns/ .

So what happened? Why has such a worthy effort simply been forgotten a year after it began? As Bloomberg's employees haven't said anything in the last year, one must make assumptions. It simply never was about the kids. It was just another PR campaign for Bloomberg's groups like Ms Watts did for Monsanto. Try to keep your corporation's image favorable in the public eye. Unfortunately for the kids, this campaign would require followup. Buying and distributing locks would require money. TO ET/MDA that money is better spent on more visible PR, like professionally made signs to appear at all "grass-roots" photo ops, paying for Ms Watts armed bodyguards (and salary) and last but not least important- campaigning against Democrats who are not sufficiently pro-gun control. Last election Bloomberg's groups helped flip two out of three targeted Democratically held Senate seats to Republican. They have yet to flip, or even target, any Republican held seat.

Sorry kids, maybe some other time.


By comparison, the National Shooting Sports Foundation continued their lock give away program http://www.projectchildsafe.org/ , distributing over 300,000 locks in 2015. They also received a $2.4 million grant for the Department of Justice to go toward supporting firearm safety education by providing gun locks and safety materials to communities throughout the country in an effort to help reduce firearms misuse.
Oh, and they did not help get any Republicans elected to office.