A US pressure group advocating gun safety has used women's sex toys in an advert to show why adults need to lock up their guns to prevent accidental shootings.

Raising the issue of child safety, the group Evolve encourages parents to keep their guns in a safe place away from children.

Evolve, which uses Saatch & Saatchi as one of its creative partners, campaigns for greater prevention and protection against gun violence.

As two mothers converse outside, their two children pretend to swordfight in the background. When the boys run outside, it is revealed that their swords are not actually swords, but dildos.

"If they find it, they'll play with it," a narrator says. "So always lock up your guns."

"Gun safety and the reduction of gun violence begin with every American," the group's website reads. "We can all have more awareness, and then help promote, responsible choices that reduce gun accidents and violence."

Evolve co-founder Rebecca Bond told the Washington Post: "Our PSA is humorous, but the message is serious. Parents need to take ownership of safety in the house.

"If you don't want kids to play with it, put it away – it's up to you to keep your stuff locked up. We're using humour to cut through political correctness and deliver a simple message.

"Americans can have a serious conversation about firearm safety that doesn't devolve into a political abyss."

The advert was released as US president Barack Obama announced that for gun control measures to pass Congress, it was essential for advocates to be as organised and well-financed as the National Rifle Association.

Speaking at a town hall meeting in Minneapolis, Obama said: "Honestly this is not going to change unless the people who want to prevent these kinds of mass shootings from taking place feel at least as passionate, at least as mobilised and well-funded as the NRA and the gun manufacturers are because the politics in Congress are such where even members of Congress who know better are fearful if they vote their conscience and support common sense measures like background checks, they're worried they're going to lose."

Obama said the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in December 2012, in which Adam Lanza, 20, shot dead 20 children and six members of staff, was a grave enough incident for Congress to take action.

This week, it was reported by the Guardian that as many as 100 girls and boys aged under 14 are killed by accidental gunfire every year.

Everytown and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, affiliated groups that campaign for tighter gun laws, studied the incidents of publicly reported unintentional gun deaths involving children from December 2012 to December 2013.

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