STOP THE GUNS

Given the massive love we got for our Think Tank Mean Streets feature a few months back, when details of the new Trident (the Met Police’s response to gun crime) campaign aimed at da yoof popped up on our radar, we couldn’t help but follow it up…

The great thing about being young (we’re guessing, as we sure ain’t old yet) is the fact you’re pretty much invincible: everyone knows that dressing like Ziggy Stardust’s loser uncle in a Krankies wig makes you impervious to the future and it’s peeling magnolia-painted walls and retina burning 1994 computer monitors… well, for a while at least: then 27 kicks in and, at best, you haven’t got a kid with someone you hate and haven’t blasted your career chances on a four year wig out at a Lady-boy vegan commune in the Thai jungles. You throw away the clothes, hopefully buy some nicely cut suit and make enough money to pay off the noisome stench of debt which seeps off you every time you approach a girl with the glint in your eye.

What everyone needs during these super-hero-powered days before responsibility crushes our spirits is a bit of a goddam reality check to temper the good times with a knowledge of the future. Notion remembers when we were pissing around at school and nearly getting expelled our Dad left us in the Job Office for about an hour with all the arse-scratching potheads trying to persuade the clerk to give them their Giro after 3 pm because they overslept. Horrifying – it totally straightened us out…though why we went for the “reliable” employment of writing we’ll never know.

Fortunately, for those of you considering a career or lifestyle involving walking the streets with a gun, Trident have come up with their astonishing reality check ad campaign STOP THE GUNS – TV and Radio recordings of Category A murderers and those serving sentences for attempted Robbery, Murder and possession of a firearm. It’s… well, it’s more heart-rending than those smoking ads with kids and their parents on iron-lungs. Those even stopped us smoking for awhile.

What’s the message these guys are bringing to the invincible, consequence-free youth? DON’T BLOW YOUR LIFE AWAY. It’s rather pithy, don’t you think? They’re also touring the five London boroughs most riddled with gun crime with a replica prison cell. That stuff is not pleasant, we promise. There was this time... nah, we’re kidding. We just remember it off Bad Girls. And even there it looked bleak (not just because of being on ITV).

There is tons of information on the website, but being invincible youth and everything you’re also lazy youth and so really aren’t going to bother reading it but here it is anyway www.stoptheguns.org

That’s why Planet notion and the clever Trident chaps have arranged a prize draw to win an ipod!  Click here for details.