If you own a firearm, it needs to be securely stored where children and other unauthorized people cannot access it. It’s a completely uncontroversial message… or at least, it is for most rational people.

It seems readily apparent, unfortunately, that the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which run Reagan National Airport isn’t remotely rational at all.

Project ChildSafe, run by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, is the firearms industry’s longstanding program to promote safe firearms storage. Since 2003, Project ChildSafe has partnered with law enforcement agencies in all 50 states to distribute more than 36 million safety kits, including cable-style locks. Now funded solely by the firearms industry and charitable donations from the public, the program in its early days was backed by a federal grant.

Project ChildSafe is not all that controversial. Even as anti-gun organizations appropriate the term “gun safety” for their own purposes, they have had trouble finding fault with what is a true gun safety program and are largely silent about it. As this was being written, we received word that the State of Utah has selected Project ChildSafe to provide some 30,000 of our kits per year for a three-to-four year program to groups that teach gun safety, health care providers and school districts.

Project ChildSafe Works. So in another way to reach out and inform the public, this year and next, travelers through some of our nation’s airports either have or will be seeing electronic and fixed advertising to promote the Project ChildSafe “Own It? Respect it. Secure it.” message. That is, travelers through all airports except for Reagan National Airport serving Washington. D.C. will be seeing these public service ads.

Five other airports have accepted or already run the ads – Hartford-Springfield, Las Vegas, Little Rock, Providence and St. Louis. But not Reagan National. Here, in the airport serving the nation’s capital, what had been routine purchasing of ad space for public service advertising ran into, you guessed it, politics. Said a knowledgeable person who tried to help this process along, “DC is a very political market and this is not something they want to be involved in. We tried every angle we could but they did not want to accommodate.”

Reagan National is administered by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, whose board is composed of political appointees. Calls to the Authority to even find the right person to talk with were unreturned. Remember, we only set out to buy some airport ads – the same ones five other airports accepted. Are we encountering a lack of transparency or accountability? We have a lot of collective experience with government agencies and it sure looks that way to us…

The NSSF won’t say it, but the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority is run by Democrat political appointees of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Stupidity. They seem to believe that if firearms are treated like He Who Must Not Be Named, then they somehow loose their power.

The MWAA seems to have it in their muddled little minds that if firearms aren’t mentioned—even in the context of an ad campaign to ensure that people store them safely—then that somehow makes children safer. Does that remotely make sense?

Would the MWAA refuse to sell advertising to road safety groups pushing a “click it or ticket” message?

Would they refuse to post ads for telling people not to drink and drive?

Project ChildSafe is simply trying to help Americans keep their children safe. Apparently that’s too radical and too politicized of an idea for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.