Crickett (firearm)
Crickett is the brand name of the best-selling US children's rifle . The manufacturer, Keystone Sporting Arms , advertises the weapon with the claim : "My First Rifle" - my first rifle. These are not toys.
history
Keystone Sporting Arms LCC was founded in Milton (Pennsylvania) in 1996 by Bill and Steve McNeal and, according to their own statements, manufactured 4,000 small rifles with four employees in their first year. In 2007 the company bought out competitor in the children's rifle market, the Rogue Rifle Company . Rogue manufactured small handguns under the name Chipmunk . Since the takeover, Keystone has also been manufacturing Chipmunk rifles in five-digit numbers per year in addition to Crickett.
Child rifle
Crickett rifles are small caliber weapons with a chamber for a single cartridge. The smallest models are 76 cm long and weigh a little over 1 kg; In comparison, the standard length of an adult rifle is 120 cm, with a weight of 3 kg. Cricketts are offered in many colors to appeal specifically to children. The pink-colored models, for example, are particularly aimed at girls. The distribution takes place among other things through the department store chain Walmart , where the weapon can be bought for less than 100 US dollars. Slightly larger Crickett series rifles are aimed at adults.
controversy
On April 30, 2013, five-year-old Kristian Sparks shot dead his two-year-old sister Caroline with his Crickett rifle in Burkesville, Kentucky . The gun had been a birthday present and was loaded in the corner of the trailer where the Sparks family lives.
The accident intensified the discussion in the US media about the problem of weapons in the hands of children and adults. The lobby group National Rifle Association , which campaigns for the right to own firearms, stood behind the manufacturer of children's rifles and argued like them that such weapons are a responsible way of introducing children to self-defense. Opponents of legal gun possession in the US saw the case as another example of social failure.
Two weeks earlier in New Jersey, a four-year-old boy had shot his six-year-old playmate in the head with his parents' gun. A few days earlier, a four-year-old boy in Tennessee accidentally shot a woman at a barbecue party. In these cases there were no children's rifles involved.
The Crickett.com website was down for days after the death of Caroline Spark. When it went back online, the Children's Corner, with its picture galleries showing young children proudly displaying their Crickett rifles, was gone.
In addition to some newspaper reporters, a TV team from RTL from Germany came to the funeral . Two local men knocked the cameraman to the ground, and two other men threatened an American reporter with the words: “If you had any sense, you'd run away. You're next, friend. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Three months earlier, on January 26, 2013, the New York Times described in Selling a New Generation on Guns how the gun industry was trying to make up for falling sales by attracting young customers.
- ↑ See, inter alia, the Guardian of May 3, 2013, the New York Times of May 5, 2013, the news portal Vocativ with photos of children with Crickett rifles
- ^ Huffingtonpost ( Memento of May 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) of April 13, 2013
- ↑ The Mother Jones newspaper article from May 1, 2013 shows some photos of the deleted website.
- ↑ Quoted from the New York Times on May 5, 2013, translated from the American