NRA Convention IV:The family experience

Posted on May 16, 2009 in Phoenix

I returned to the convention today with wife and two little girls, 2 & 5, in tow. Yesterday I bought the little girls NRA convention T-shirts and they were both big hits with their matching shirts and bouncing pony tails.

I took my 5 year old to the air gun shooting range, and there found the exact air rifle I’ve been looking at for her. It took some coercing and the promise of a ribbon to get her to pull the trigger, but once she did she was hooked. Only hit the paper once but … a good start nonetheless. Priming the pump for when I buy her one of her own.

Then over to the Eddie Eagle booth for a collection of doodads, including a picture with the eagle himself (which my girls, totally on their own, humorously began calling the “chicken”).

Eddie Eagle has a simple message: if you find a gun leave it alone and get an adult. But anti-gun groups are so hateful that even this is an evil NRA plot.

And the VPC and 20/20’s answer to Eddie Eagle? “It does not help to tell kid’s what to do.” But of course they set the program up for failure by using it on 3 year olds and boy’s who have had no exposure to guns at all EXCEPT for the Eddie Eagle program. Eddie Eagle is better than nothing for everybody, but definitely a must for those of us who own guns and have children.

The girls had a good time, though I made it a point to do a targeted visit and not try to hit every booth on the exhibit floor. I could have spent another few hours there, though!