Explore The NRA Universe Of Websites

APPEARS IN News

LEGO Art Triggers Anti-gun Group

Monday, February 10, 2020

LEGO Art Triggers Anti-gun Group

Back in 2012, we reported on a controversy over LEGO Heavy Weapons, a guide on building toy guns out of LEGO bricks written by Jack Streat, a then teenaged resident of the United Kingdom.  Some parents were aghast that the much-loved children’s toy could be used to make “confrontational” playthings. When the same publisher followed up by releasing Forbidden LEGO: Build the Models Your Parents Warned You Against (authored by two former employees of the LEGO firm), Britain’s Daily Telegraph virtually guaranteed a boost in book sales by apparently describing it as “the Anarchist Cookbook of the nursery.”

The same sort of peculiar overreaction has surfaced again, this time in relation to an art exhibit in Britain of “stunning, thought provoking and often humorous artworks” geared towards “art enthusiasts and LEGO fans alike.” The Brick by Brick exhibition at Nottinghamshire’s Harley Gallery features LEGO-inspired art by 18 international artists. The objects on display include a Brick Gun, built out of multicolored LEGO bricks, and similar depictions of firearms by Belfast artist David Turner.

The Gun Control Network has attacked the inclusion of his artwork because these depictions allegedly amount to glamorizing or promoting guns. According to the group, the suggestion that the work “has any artistic value whatsoever is completely nonsense.” The anti-gunners add a final, clunky bit of rubbish thinking by warning of the public safety risk “posed to the community” because the artwork guns “could be accessed by those wishing to use them to enable crime.”

Statistics on crimes committed using LEGO guns (or squirt guns or pop tarts in the shape of guns) are hard to come by. However, the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports that offenses involving firearms “make up a small proportion of overall police recorded crime. In the year ending March 2018, they were used in approximately 0.2% of all police recorded offences.” The latest report by the ONS on the nature of violent crime in England and Wales (Sept. 2019) shows no percentage change in the number of police-recorded offences involving firearms had occurred. (It did, however, report a significant increase in the number of offences involving knives or sharp instruments from the previous year. Knife crimes were 46% higher than when comparable recording began in 2011 and were “the highest on record.”)

In the case of Mr. Turner, the claims of the Gun Control Network are not a little untethered to reality. As he explains on his homepage, Mr. Turner’s artwork reflects his childhood experience of “growing up in turbulent Belfast during the ‘70s” as well as drawing “upon considerations on present and historical conflicts and terrorist attacks in the world,” and is “intended as a critical commentary on the atrocities and glorification of war and violence.”

Another troubling feature of the opposition to this art is the disturbing mindset it reveals. Not only are real, actual firearms themselves marginalized as toxic, but everything from toys to t-shirts to art and culture on a broader scale are all similarly defiled and to be despised for simply representing or referencing guns.

The Harley Gallery, to its credit, has resisted demands that that Mr. Turner’s art be purged from the exhibit. After all, art is supposed to provoke emotion – some would say the whole point of art is the artist’s emotional or aesthetic expression and the partaker’s response.

TRENDING NOW
Is This What Help Looks Like in Chicago?

News  

Monday, June 5, 2023

Is This What Help Looks Like in Chicago?

Chicago, desperate to do something to try to diminish the violent crime that is ravaging the city, has turned to programs that are not your traditional law enforcement approach to try to help stem the ...

Study: Restrictive Gun Control Laws “Unlikely” to Solve Problem of Youth Gun Violence

News  

Monday, June 5, 2023

Study: Restrictive Gun Control Laws “Unlikely” to Solve Problem of Youth Gun Violence

A first of its kind study published in late May in the American Medical Association’s JAMA Network Open concluded that community-level “social vulnerability” factors like poverty, unemployment, crowded housing, and minority status were much more likely than ...

Connecticut:  Gun Control Bill Passes the House and Moves to the Senate

Saturday, May 27, 2023

Connecticut: Gun Control Bill Passes the House and Moves to the Senate

On Thursday, the House passed HB 6667 on a vote of 96-51.  This drastic gun control legislation has a bit of everything.  It contains a ban on open carry and strengthens prohibitions and registration of semi-auto "assault ...

Updates to ATF Final Rule on Stabilizing Braces

News  

Monday, January 30, 2023

Updates to ATF Final Rule on Stabilizing Braces

On Monday, January 30, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) published the final Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached “Stabilizing Braces” rule for public inspection in the federal register.

Maine: House to Vote on Anti-Shooting Range Bill

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Maine: House to Vote on Anti-Shooting Range Bill

Tomorrow, the Maine House is scheduled to vote on Legislative Document 1000, which would establish a firearm range safety group within the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife. This legislation is the first step in ...

Undercover Video: Sen. Fetterman (D-Pa.) staffer claims boss would be “okay with like overturning the Second Amendment”

News  

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Undercover Video: Sen. Fetterman (D-Pa.) staffer claims boss would be “okay with like overturning the Second Amendment”

It seems as though Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) may like to overturn more than just the U.S. Senate’s standards of professional attire. According to an undercover video of Fetterman senate staffer Luke Borwegen, obtained by O’Keefe Media Group, ...

U.S. House Judiciary Committee Advances Pistol Brace Resolution

News  

Monday, April 24, 2023

U.S. House Judiciary Committee Advances Pistol Brace Resolution

On April 19, the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee voted 23-15 to advance H.J.Res.44, which would reign in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ attempt to regulate pistol stabilizing braces. The resolution employs ...

New York:  Approaching End of Session Is A Dangerous Time For Gun Owners

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

New York: Approaching End of Session Is A Dangerous Time For Gun Owners

We are in the ninth inning in Albany, and the anti-gun politicians are always looking to steal a base.  You can count the number of scheduled 2023 legislative session days on one hand, which means ...

Texas Legislature Ends Regular Session After Passing a Trio of Pro-Second Amendment Bills & Rejecting Gun Control Measures

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Texas Legislature Ends Regular Session After Passing a Trio of Pro-Second Amendment Bills & Rejecting Gun Control Measures

The Texas Legislature adjourned from the 2023 Regular Session on Memorial Day and was immediately called back into special session on property tax relief and human smuggling issues.

Connecticut:  Gun Control Legislation Nearing House Vote

Thursday, May 25, 2023

Connecticut: Gun Control Legislation Nearing House Vote

Gun banners in Hartford have been busy all session cooking up a concoction of more gun control.  In a state where there is already a large buffet of gun laws, it’s time for Connecticut gun ...

MORE TRENDING +
LESS TRENDING -

More Like This From Around The NRA

NRA ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.