This undated Iver Johnson ad may just be the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen posted on the LiveJournal Vintage Ads group. Not just for the odd spectacle of the little girl playing with a pistol in bed above the legend “Accidental Discharge Impossible,” but for the accompanying caption “Papa says it won’t hurt us.” Even without reaching for some kind of sexual abuse innuendo or subtext, the idea that a father would show a small, untrained child a loaded handgun and say, “Don’t play with this, daughter, but if you do, it won’t hurt you!” is, well, weird.
