Public Service Announcement Encourages Kids To Steal Guns From Parents [Video]

A new “stop gun violence” public service announcement appears to encourage schoolkids to steal their parents’ guns.

The three-minute video perhaps gives a new meaning to show and tell.

In the pro-gun control PSA, a young boy quietly enters his parents’ bedroom, takes a firearm from a dresser drawer, and stuffs it in his backpack.

After class, he approaches a soon-to-be-shocked teacher and says “Can you take this away? I don’t feel safe with a gun in my house.” It’s not made clear whether the weapon is loaded.

The ad then features the words “our children deserve a safe world,” and “stop gun violence now” superimposed over lockers in a school hallway.

The PSA — see embed below — was directed and written by Rejina Sincic, and produced by San Francisco-based Sleeper 13 Productions. The credits suggest that it may have been filmed at North Oakland Community Charter School. On Twitter, Sincic accused some people of being too cowardly to share the PSA.

According to the Bearing Arms website, the PSA has some disturbing implications. “In the real world, such an act would result in the boy facing numerous felony charges (exact charges depend on state laws) possibly including weapons theft, unlawful possession of a weapon by a minor, illegal concealed carry of a weapon, carrying a weapon onto school property, assault, and brandishing.”

Whether you favor gun control or not, for what it’s worth, the home environment presented in the brief ad appears to be law abiding rather than chaotic. That being said, news outlets regularly report on ordinary citizens with valid gun permits who have used their firearms to defend themselves from home invaders.

Bringing a weapon to the teacher, moreover, would hardly fall under the category of firearms safety or compliance with gun-free zones surrounding many schools.

The anti-gun PSA has received about 70,000 hits on YouTube so far, and more than 2,000 comments underneath it. It also prompted a strong, mostly negative reaction on Sleeper 13’s Facebook page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFOhBAH3zPA#t=52

One Facebook user called the ad “nonsense.”

“I don’t even understand what the point of the video is here. Steal your parent’s gun and take it to school? You can’t even have a ‘gun-shaped’ pop-tart in school without getting the boots put to you. Take a real gun to school and you think it’s going to be handled well? Of course not, that’s why you cut out before the kid gets hauled away by the police. This is nonsense, and quite honestly you are encouraging children to commit a crime here. Multiple in fact. Maybe rethink your message and present it in a more positive and meaningful way in a different video.”

Another Facebook user provided this assessment of the video’s message to children.

“If you feel scared because of the mere presence of a firearm in your home, you really need to talk to your parents about this. If you feel scared because someone in your household is committing acts of domestic violence, then BY ALL MEANS reach out to a teacher or a member of law enforcement. But UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you take a firearm to school.”

Do you approve or disapprove of an ad that purports to encourage youngsters to steal their parents’ guns?

[image via YouTube]