NSFW: Gunmaker Appalls With ‘JR-15’ For Kids That Works ‘Just Like Mom & Dad’s’ NSFW
The fight for gun control continues to be a steep hill, and pushing it over the edge is a new rifle brazenly advertised as a kids’ version of the AR-15.
A profile by Fast Company’s Talib Visram describes this contraption in great detail. Last month, firearms company Schmid Tool and Engineering presented the ‘JR-15’ at the country’s most prominent annual trade show for sport shooting and hunting, which is hosted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF).
The rifle, retailing for US$389, is touted as the first of a growing range of shooting platforms “that will safely help adults introduce children to the shooting sports.”
In other words, this is a “My First AR-15.”
“Our goal from day one was to develop a shooting platform that was not only sized correctly, and safe, but also looks, feels, and operates just like Mom and Dad’s gun,” explained WEE1 Tactical, the new kids-only offshoot of the weapon maker, in a news release published in November.
To be “friendlier” on smaller arms, the JR-15 is constructed with lightweight polymer and weighs 2.2 pounds, and it’s also 20% smaller than the grownup’s rifle. Where it differs quite significantly is its patented “tamper-resistant safety” mechanism that requires adult supervision and strength to turn on the firearms safety switch.
The rifle is a .22 caliber firearm, a common starter style since .22-inch bullets hit slower and have a lower recoil than the ones used in AR-15 rifles.
The company isn’t shy to admit its intent to acclimate children into a life of using firearms. “We believe that this introduction early on will produce a deep respect for firearms that continue and last for a lifetime of safety!” it wrote in its statement.
The tagline “Safety First” appears on its website, which is clearly targeted at minors with its cartoon logo of boy and girl skulls sucking on pacifiers.
Gun-reform advocates are startled at how the rifle is blatantly designed as a child’s AR-15, considering that AR-15 rifles were the choice of weapon for 11 out of 12 of the most notorious mass shootings, including the Sandy Hook school massacre.
“The callousness of the National Shooting Sports Foundation to promote a children’s version of the same type of assault rifle that was used in a horrific mass shooting of 20 first-graders and six educators in our shared community is just the latest proof that the organization, and the gun manufacturers it represents, will do anything in pursuit of continued profits,” condemns Po Murray, chairwoman of the Newtown Action Alliance.
“There [have] been youth shooting guns for 80 years, but there’s never been a youth AR-15,” Ryan Busse, a senior advisor at gun violence prevention group Giffords, tells Fast Company.
Busse, who was a firearms executive in a former life, dismisses the notion of a starter .22 being non-lethal. “Believe me, you do not want to get shot with a .22.”
Josh Sugarmann, founder of the Violence Policy Center, says that proudly marketing a children’s product as a variation of an AR-15 is “something we’ve never seen before.”
“What makes the WEE1 JR-15 really just so horrific is the fact that it’s saying the quiet part out loud. There’s no shame,” Sugarmann continues.
[via Fast Company and The Independent, images via various sources]
