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August 18, 2025
Cue the Clown Car: Everytown Gun Control Wants to Train Gun Owners
Some things are just so insanely foolish, they can’t be made up. This is one of those. Get in the clown car because this circus is crazy.
The Michael Bloomberg billionaire-bankrolled gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety is rolling out a new firearm ownership campaign to teach gun owners how to be safe and responsible with the firearms they’re bringing into their homes. It would be easy to dismiss this as the stuff of comedy writers. In fact, it was hardly believable until NSSF staff saw it with their own eyes at the recent National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) held in Boston, Massachusetts.
Everytown is the same group that wants to ban guns, require firearm registries, permits to purchase a firearm, prohibit young adults from legally purchasing a firearm, enact waiting periods to take possession of legally-purchased firearms, keep guns under constant lock-and-key, restrict their use to designated areas and slap exorbitant taxes and fees just to purchase one. This is the same group that tells people to bring up gun control as Thanksgiving Day conversation, like a nonchalant weather chat. In short, there isn’t a proposed barrier to lawful firearm ownership Everytown doesn’t support.
But they’re pitching themselves as the go-to firearm safety experts. Everytown calls the program “Train Smart.”
So-Called ‘Experts’
That’s like getting barbecuing lessons from vegans.
NSSF representatives were on hand when Everytown’s Greg Lickenbrock presented the gun control group’s “Gun Ownership 101” class. If that name is – or isn’t – familiar, NSSF exposed him for the token “I’m a gun owner too” Fudd who is the latest in the series that includes, Ryan Busse and David Chipman. One member of NSSF’s staff was quickly recognized and Everytown’s team scurried to ensure Lickenbrock knew he was in the room. That was followed by a polite wave and a smile from NSSF’s representative to Lickenbrock. But here’s what NSSF learned.
Everytown is rolling out their new “Train Smart” initiative. It appears to be an extension of their “Be Smart” safe firearm storage effort that attempts to mimic NSSF’s awarding winning Project ChildSafe® campaign. Project Childsafe, though, doesn’t lean on a foundation of supporting laws requiring guns to be locked. Project Childsafe encourages gun owners to ensure firearms are unavailable to those who should never possess them, including unsupervised children, those suffering a mental health crisis or prohibited individuals. Project ChildSafe encourages gun owners to explore safer firearm storage options that best meet their lifestyle for when firearms are not in use.
Project ChildSafe has partnered with over 15,000 law enforcement agencies in all 50 states and five U.S. territories to distribute over 41 million free firearm safety kits, including a locking device.
“Train Smart” is rolling out several segmented lessons, including “The Smart Guide to Buying a Gun,” which features a one-hour course for prospective gun buyers who “want the facts about gun ownership without a sales pitch.” Everytown will teach those gun buyers about why people own guns, facts surrounding gun ownership, secure storage, protecting a home, “universal” guns safety rule and what to look for in a gun.
This is the same group that preaches that guns are the root of all evil, claims that gun owners can’t really protect themselves and are actually at greater risk when a gun is in the home.
Note the derogatory “sales pitch” language. Gun owners today know that today’s modern gun retailers and ranges are a long way from the “hey little lady” stereotype. In fact, of the 26.2 million Americans who became first-time gun owners over the past five years, the fastest growing segment of that group was African American women.
Those new gun owners have learned that local firearm retailers and ranges are the primary source for learning to become a safe and responsible gun owner. Those ranges offer lessons, provide advice on storage options and even help explain the laws and responsibilities that come with lawful gun ownership.
That’s a far cry from headlines that are published by Everytown’s mouthpiece “The Trace” or “The Smoking Gun” that demonize the firearm industry and gun owners to scare people away from exercising their Second Amendment rights.
But Wait, There’s More.
That’s not all that Everytown’s bringing to the table with “Train Smart.” There’s also a two-and-a-half hour “The Smart Guide to Owning a Firearm” class. That includes all the same topics as the one-hour class but will be presented by “an expert” instead of scouring YouTube. So… same drivel, more time and likely more money to hear from their “expert.” Those “experts” are unnamed, but can only be assumed to be those like Lickenbrock, who as a self-described expert lobbied Colorado to ban Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs).
Or gun owners can go ask the real experts at their local firearm retailer and range.
Everytown’s “Train Smart” initiative will also host “Raise Standards in Your State” classes, which isn’t even an attempt to hide their efforts to convince people to press for permits and licenses, and instructor certifications, which amazingly can now be provided by the newest firearm training program in town.
Lastly, if those aren’t enough, Everytown’s “Train Smart” plans to offer a “Train Smart Gun Safety & Marksmanship” class, which ought to be hoot, since the gun control group has yet to shoot straight on anything they say. That’s going to be an eight-hour class to teach people how to handle and use firearms responsibly and serve as a role model for others. Topics covered in this class are the same as the other two shorter classes, except they’ll also talk about suicide prevention, de-escalation tactics, pistol marksmanship and… wait for it… “and much more.”
There’s no word if those classes will include any range time – or that any gun range would want to host Everytown to do it.
One can only guess that class will have lessons on how to properly dispossess oneself of Second Amendment rights. Here’s a hint… you shouldn’t just dump a handgun (illegally purchased) in a trash can like Hallie Biden, Beau Biden’s widow who was then dating Hunter Biden. That’s true no matter how much money Bloomberg and Everytown gave to Hunter’s father to push the most radical, antigun agenda yet.
The whole thing is so bizarre that it couldn’t possibly be fiction. Honestly… you just can’t make this stuff up.
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