Better late than never.
Steve Harvey used an episode of his daytime talk show back in May (it just came to our attention) to ridicule the NRA’s longstanding gun safety program. He asked, “What’s a better way to keep kids from guns—laws that punish adults who let children get their hands on firearms, or is it Eddie Eagle?” The comedian then went on to mock the mascot and question an NRA claim that the Eddie Eagle GunSafe program has been credited with an 80-percent reduction in child firearm accident fatalities.
Harvey should have done a bit more research. The statistic he cites was a finding of the National Center for Health Statistics. And since it began in 1988, the NRA’s gun accident prevention program has been widely successful and adopted throughout the nation. To date, it has taught its life-saving message of what to do if children come across a gun—Stop. Don’t Touch. Run Away. Tell A Grown-up—to more than 28 million children in all 50 states, plus Canada and Puerto Rico.
So who’s laughing now?
