In 2019, a top NRA donor filed a class action lawsuit in 2019, alleging CEO Wayne LaPierre and other top NRA leaders wrongfully enriched themselves by living large while ignoring the group’s mission. The NRA has of late found itself embroiled in legal and financial trouble. This, claims the NRA, “verifies the popularity of the Program with those who deal with child safety issues every day.”īut the Eddie Eagle program-which was deemed largely ineffective in real-world situations by the American Academy of Pediatrics, among others-has in recent years failed to attain anywhere near that sort of reach. Gabby Giffords, have spoken favorably of Eddie Eagle. Eddie Eagle has also “received bipartisan support from 26 state governors, as well as resolutions from 23 state legislatures,” the NRA states in its program materials, which further note that “26,000 school teachers and law enforcement officers have taught the Program to over 32 million children.”Įven staunch gun safety advocates like Mark Kelly, Navy combat vet and husband to gun violence survivor and former Arizona Rep.
Department of Justice (through the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention), and the Association of American Educators. Tell a grown-up.”Īccording to the NRA, the program, which in addition to schools can be administered by law enforcement agencies and civic groups, has been “honored or endorsed” by the National Sheriffs’ Association, the U.S. Launched in 1988, the initiative is aimed at pre-K through fourth graders and features an animated eagle and his anthropomorphic “wing team,” that instruct children who encounter a gun to: “STOP! Don’t touch. American kids under the age of 15 are nine times more likely to die in an inadvertent shooting than kids elsewhere in the developed world.įor more than three decades, schools across the United States-including the one Rinehart attended as a child as well as the one Eli later attended-have used the National Rifle Association’s “ Eddie Eagle” program to teach young kids about gun safety. According to a Washington Post data analysis published in June, accidental shootings rose by more than 40 percent between 20, with accidental shootings by children up 45 percent. During the first five months of 2021, an average of 54 people died each day in shootings, an increase from an average of 40 shootings deaths per day over the past six years. A neurosurgeon woke Rinehart and told her she had no option-she had to sign a form giving doctors permission to operate immediately, or Eli, who was just barely hanging on, would die.Įach year in the United States, roughly 350 children under the age of 17 get access to a firearm and shoot themselves or someone else. That night, Eli’s brain swelled to dangerous levels. Doctors removed his right eye, taking out his right temporal bone and a portion of his brain’s right temporal lobe in the process. And that’s where our story began.”Įli was rushed to a local hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery. The bullet entered the corner of his right eye, exited behind his right ear. “But.his finger hit the trigger and the gun discharged. “He knew his dad was preoccupied with his little brother, and he picked it up because he just wanted to look see if he could see what he called a ‘missile,’ which was a bullet,” Haley Parker Rinehart, Eli’s mom, told The Daily Beast. Sitting on top of the stack of books, was a handgun. While the younger boy was having his diaper changed, Eli went to look for some children’s books his grandmother set out for him on the headboard of her bed.
It was April 2002, and Eli was visiting his grandparents in Louisville, Kentucky, with his father and 1-year-old brother after his parents had recently separated. When he was 4 years old, Eli Parker shot himself in the face.
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