Sauce For The Goose, Hoplophobes!

Sporting a cover image of a blue-eyed family with guns clipped to their belts, a new American children's picture book is setting itself out as the solution for all those parents who "carry a gun and sometimes struggle with how to best explain the reasons" to their children.

My Parents Open Carry, by Brian Jeffs and Nathan Nephew, co-founders of the pro-gun Michigan Open Carry, has been released by small US publisher White Feather Press.

The picture-book fellows a "typical Saturday running errands and having fun together" for 13-year-old Brenna Strong and her parents, say the authors. "What's not so typical is that Brenna's parents lawfully open carry handguns for self-defence."

If it sounds familiar, well, we all remember how this tactic has been used by the progressives, don’t we? And are they happy their tactics have been used against them? Reader, they are not:

"Modelled on the gay parenting books of the 1980s (right down to the moustache) this is a vital instruction book for everyone who wants to teach their children tolerance. Tolerance of moustaches that don't match the wig, and tolerance of people who need to over-compensate for 'something' by brandishing a gun in public. Don't worry, we get both messages, loud and clear," wrote one reviewer on Amazon.

"This started out as a 5 Star rating, but quickly went downhill as the evening progressed," wrote another. "After saying our prayers to Jesus and Charlton Heston, I sat on the edge of my kids' bed to read them this book, when I shifted my position and accidentally set off my 9mil that was strapped to my hip, shooting myself in the thigh."

It was described by Raw Story as portraying a "day in the life of 'typical' gun nut family", and "a primer for the children of gun nuts who'll be lucky to see their 10th birthday". "As a prologue to the kids … I'd like point out that – no matter what mommy and daddy say – over 10,000 kids are shot each year in the United States and having a gun in the home makes you less, not more safe," wrote TBogg at Raw Story.

Oh, is there anything more delicious than seeing the Righteous squirming and frothing as they are hoist on their own absurd petard?

Children's book publisher Elizabeth Laws, meanwhile, took to Twitter to say that it was the first time in 25 years that "a children's book leaves me speechless".

"Would love to deconstruct everything wrong with this. #1, Open Carry isn't a verb," she wrote. "Bad enough that her parents pack heat, but who made a teen wear a granny blouse? Or tease her hair? #badparenting."

Could have been worse, though. They could have been depicted smoking:

Concerns about the message this depiction of smoking sends have been raised by parents in online reviews and on parenting website Mumsnet. On Amazon, one wrote: "Why on earth would a children's book contain even the idea of smoking! Disgusting!"

Another had it that: "It's a lovely book up until you reach the smoking pages. Even though it makes the point that smoking is a bad idea, it makes me really uncomfortable to see any depiction of it in a children's book,"…

These people have reproduced and are raising children. No wonder we are in a mess!