BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today labeled a so-called ‘public service announcement” that literally encourages teens to commit firearms felonies ostensibly to get firearms out of their homes in the interest of “safety.”
The Washington Times and other sources identify the PSA as having been produced by a San Francisco-based production company called Sleeper 13 Productions. The nearly three-minute video shows a teen taking what appears to be a loaded handgun out of his parents’ drawer, hiding it in a backpack and taking it to school, where he hands it over to a teacher and asking that the gun be taken away.
“The series of crimes depicted in this video is simply astonishing,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “We’re talking about felony theft of a firearm, illegal possession of a handgun by a minor, having a gun in a school, illegal concealed carry by a minor, brandishing and maybe one or two other crimes, depending upon the jurisdiction.
“The fact that the gun appears to be a very real-looking BB pistol is not the point,” he noted. “The scenario obviously depicts what some youngster should do with a real handgun. Besides, even bringing a BB gun to school is against the law, and at the very least, the boy in this video would wind up being arrested and face felony charges.
“We understand from published reports that angry messages have been showing up on this company’s Facebook page,” Gottlieb said, “and rightly so. The message of this video is so monumentally stupid that if any youth does something like this after watching it, the producers should face charges. If someone is hurt, they should face both criminal and civil liability.”
CCRKBA, Gottlieb noted, has a long history of promoting firearms safety.
“This video isn’t a public service announcement,” he said, “but a public dis-service and the producers ought to be ashamed.”