What Piece of Seemingly Benign Advice From an NRA Speaker Has Liberal Sites Up in Arms?

A speaker at the National Rifle Association convention advised parents to keep an extra gun safe in their children's room -- a suggestion that quickly made its way around the liberal blogosphere.

Rob Pincus, the owner of self-defense training company I.C.E., told the audience at his seminar on home defense Saturday that if they hear an intruder, their first instinct will be to run to their kids. Therefore, that's where their gun should be as well.

"In the middle of the night, if I’m in the bathroom or getting a glass of water or I'm in the bedroom or watching TV in the living room, if that alarm goes off and the glass breaks and the dog starts barking, what’s the instinct that most people are going to have, in regard to, 'am I going to run across the house to get the gun, or am I going to run over here to help the screaming kid?'" Pincus said. "And if I’m going to go to the kid anyway, and I have an extra gun and an extra safe, why not put it in their closet?"

The left-leaning website ThinkProgress posted video of Pincus' comments with the headline, "NRA ‘Home Defense’ Course Instructs Audience To Store Guns In Kids’ Room." It was quickly picked up by the Huffington Post, Raw Story and elsewhere. Those sites cited statistics about child deaths from accidental shootings and from gun violence.

In the video, Pincus acknowledged the "emotional pushback" to his suggestion, but said there is "absolutely nothing wrong with staging the gun where you're most likely to barricade."

"If you have to run across the house to check on the kids, there's no reason to take them out of that room and move them to some other room when the bad guy might be wandering around in your house," he said. "If you're all there together, if you're all there safe, stay there."