Growing up, we were often told about various essay contests out there. While usually optional, they were out there. I remember winning for my grade one year and having to read it before some of the teachers to see who would win for our school and go on to state.

I don’t even remember what contest it was, but these things are pretty common.

So I wasn’t shocked to find out that the NRA hosted one.

What’s hilarious, though, is how the anti-gunners are reacting to the NRA having an essay contest.

For the National Rifle Association, no American is too young to join in their absolutist defense of the Second Amendment — and that includes kindergarteners.

As the NRA corruption trial began in Manhattan this month, the gun-rights lobby started accepting submissions from children grades K-12 for its 2024 “What the Second Amendment Means To You” youth essay contest.

The annual contest encourages children to engage in “scholarly research on the Second Amendment as well as reflect on how the Second Amendment and other Constitutional rights affect their daily lives,” as the gun lobby described it in a 2016 blog post.

Leaving aside the oddness of asking the youngest of grade schoolers how the constitutional right to bear arms affects them personally, the contest raises alarms for gun-control advocates.

Everything raises alarms for gun control advocates. They’re the most easily alarmed people on the planet, particularly if the NRA does literally anything.

It’s funny, too, because they routinely bemoan the NRA stepping away from its supposed roots in educating people and engaging in lobbying efforts, but when they do education, they freak out even more.

Moving on…

Gun violence was the No. 1 cause of death for US children in 2021, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So there’s something almost macabre in enlisting children in the NRA mission to restrict gun control, said Kris Brown, the president of the gun-safety group Brady.

“Eight kids a day are killed or injured by guns in the home,” said Brown, calling that grim statistic “uniquely American.”

“It’s very dangerous for younger Americans to be indoctrinated with the viewpoint that the Second Amendment allows every American to lawfully possess a firearm,” she said.

Yeah, facts are terrible things, aren’t they?

Of course, the story goes on to note that this essay contest has been held by the NRA every year since 1990, so this isn’t exactly new.

See, what’s going on here is that Kris Brown and anti-gunners like her want to push the idea of gun rights into a proverbial closet, never to be seen or heard from. If people don’t know they have the right to keep and bear arms, they’re far less likely to defend that right.

Brown isn’t outraged by Americans Against Gun Violence having an essay contest, though. What about the one by March For Our Lives?

Admittedly, it’s just for high schoolers versus the very young, but I’m curious just how many kids are actually taking part.

After all, gun control ideology controls most classrooms in this country, which means a lot of kids don’t even know this is a thing. That includes in pro-gun households. If people know about it, they might take a swing at it, but it’s unlikely that anyone who doesn’t already agree with the NRA is going have anything to do with it.

Meanwhile, these other contests are being pushed on a lot of students.

This is a non-issue, really, but Kris Brown and all the other anti-gunners just can’t stand that someone other than them could be involved in communicating ideas to children. The NRA, in their minds, should just roll up into a little ball–and remember, for these people, “NRA” means anyone who is pro-gun–and deposit themselves in the nearest dumpster.

We’re not to be heard from. We’re not to be listened to. We aren’t supposed to have opinions unless people like Kris Brown give them to us.

And really, considering the idiotic things Brown has said in the past, that’s horrifying.

So no, there’s not a problem with an NRA essay contest, and if Business Insider thinks this is a real story–or that it has anything to do with business–then that publication has gone down in my estimation, and that’s really saying something.