Samantha Bee Proved That It’s Harder To Buy The NRA’s Cutesy Eagle Mascot Costume Than A Gun
The NRA has background checks, waiting lists and a national registry -- for anyone wanting to buy one of its Eddie Eagle gun safety mascot costumes.
When it isn’t blocking gun control measures in various US legislatures or giving millions of dollars to politicians, the NRA runs the Eddie Eagle Gunsafe program, an awareness campaign purporting to teach young kids about gun safety. Eddie Eagle has been starring in catchy cartoon ads, TV programs and webseries since the program began in 1988, but its effectiveness at actually preventing gun accidents among children is heavily disputed. A 2004 study in US medical journal Pediatrics found that programs like Eddie Eagle “are insufficient for teaching gun-safety skills to children”, especially “during supervised role play” and “real-life assessments”. To critics, Eddie Eagle normalises the presence of guns in kids’ lives from a very early age while doing very little to actually stop kids hurting themselves.
Cuddly Eddie Eagle mascots regularly make appearances at gun shows and expos, letting kids and adults grab photos with their favourite ineffective gun-safety bird. But exactly who gets to dress up like Eddie is tightly regulated; surprisingly for a group that’s so down on regulation, the NRA doesn’t let just anybody get their hands on an Eddie Eagle costume.
Which is where Full Frontal with Samantha Bee comes in. in their latest episode, the Full Frontal team go hell for leather trying to snap up an Eddie costume, and are stymied at every turn by the NRA’s exhaustive system of background checks, waiting lists and registries designed to keep costumes out of the hands of dangerous and irresponsible people who could do harm with them. They then console themselves by buying a shitload of shotguns and assault rifles from gun-show tables and out of people’s car boots with less hassle than you get buying a packet of extra-strong flu medication. From the awkward confrontation with a real-life Eddie to the homemade costume at the end, it’s a pretty wonderful bit of TV.
As a special bonus, Full Frontal filmed what they did with all those guns after the segment was finished, and set it to a cheesy ’70s-porn soundtrack. They have really fun jobs.