you have to be either 18 or 21 to own a gun. so it s their gun. i don t care what it looks like. it is their gun. it is their responsibility. and that s that s a non-negotiable. and marketers are going to do what marketers do. i am a marketing professional. i have been for 20 years. as a marketer, do you feel any responsibility for a situation like this in the way that crickett marketed. this is a very loaded question, pun intended. of course they bear some responsibility, but are they ultimately responsible? i made a decision when my children were young not to have guns in my house. by guns, i don t mean ones that shoot and kill, i mean plastic toy guns. i didn t like it. it s not a message i want to share with my children. so i didn t. there were no guns in my house. even a super soaker gun from
nerf that s fun and exciting for kids, wasn t in my house. that wasn t part of our world. marketers can market all they want. it s really the parental responsibility to say, i have a gun in my house. it might be cute. it might be pink, which is insane they may not say that part. i say that part. right. you say that part. but it should be locked up. trisha haas and trudy ross, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. regardless of what side of the fence you sit on this, our thoughts are with this family. this is a really awful story that certainly brings to light a conversation that needs to be had. thank you very much, ladies. appreciate it. a teenager surfing off coast of florida almost becomes lunch for a stealthy shark.
had a gun two weeks ago? no bill in congress, no rose garden speech will ever change that inescapable fact that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. lapierre and sarah palin also criticized the obama administration for, quote, exploiting victims of gun violence. speaking about guns and victims, it s hard not to talk about this heart breaking story in kentucky. do me a favor. whatever you do take a look at your screen. that 2-year-old little girl was shot to death by her 5-year-old brother. of course this was an accident, people. their mother was at home at the time. she had just stepped outside before the gun went off. you can t imagine what this was like for her. here s where most of the controversy lies in a lot of people s conversations. the .22 caliber crickett rifle
to get their hands on a weapon. trudy, what about you? what was your initial impression? i mean, i m not going to say it s not a terrible story and a horrible tragedy, because it is, but on the other hand, is it the marketers? is it their problem? it is. it s also the parents responsibility. if you re going to bring guns into your home, take care to lock them up and be safe about it. this child got to the gun because it was sitting in the corner next to a bb gun, which was his as well. i don t have guns in my home. i don t support it myself. it s in our world. when 94% of people in this country support background checks and the senate can t get it through, you know, that s an external thing that is saying to america, yeah, well, it s a reality. okay, parents, it s a reality. let s talk about that marketing real quickly. this was crickett, as i understand it, the manufacturer, and apparently they do market
belonged to that 5-year-old boy. it was his birthday present. the family says they kept the rifle in what they considered to be a safe spot. two popular bloggers are joining me now, patricia haas and trudy ross. we thank you both for being with us. i know you both have a lot to say about this. tricia, let me start with you. when you first heard the gun belonged to the 5-year-old, what s your initial thought? it s shocking. honestly, to learn that a gun that was marketed to children was used in this horrific accident, it blew my mind. why are we marketing guns to kids at all? in a world where we give our kids delusions i wouldn t say delusions, but excitements like santa claus and the tooth fairy, we re going to expect them to turn around and understand the finality of death. it s impossible to understand. what i understand from the 5-year-old, he really didn t understand what happened. that to me alone reminds me that kids should not be in the hands or have an opportunity