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posted by martyb on Thursday December 10 2015, @06:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the click-and-shoot dept.

Mike McPhate reports in The New York Times that two home shopping industry veterans, Valerie Castle and Doug Bornstein, are set to premier GunTV, a new 24-Hour shopping channel for guns, that aims to take the QVC approach of peppy hosts pitching "a vast array of firearms," as well as related items like bullets, holsters and two-way radios. The new cable channel hopes to help satisfy Americans' insatiable appetite for firearms. The channel's forthcoming debut might seem remarkably ill-timed, given recent shootings at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs and at a social services center in San Bernardino, California but gun sales have been rising for years, with nearly 21 million background checks performed in 2014, and they appear on track to a new record this year. The boom has lately been helped by a drumbeat of mass shootings, whose attendant anxiety has only driven more people into the gun store.

The proposed schedule of programming allots an eight-minute segment each hour to safety public service announcements in between proposed segments on topics like women's concealed weapon's apparel, big-game hunting and camping. Buying a Glock on GunTV won't be quite like ordering a pizza. When a firearm is purchased, a distributor will send it to a retailer near the buyer, where it has to be picked up in person and a federal background check performed. "We saw an opportunity in filling a need, not creating one," says Castle. "The vast majority of people who own and use guns in this country, whether it's home protection, recreation or hunting, are responsible .... I don't really know that it's going to put more guns on the streets."

Critics suggest that Gun TV could make the decision to purchase a weapon seem trivial—on the same level as ordering a Snuggie or a vertical egg cooker. "Buying a gun is a serious decision," says Laura Cutilletta, senior staff attorney at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "If you are going to buy a gun for your home, it's not a decision you should be making at three in the morning because you are watching TV."


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  • (Score: 1) by module0000 on Thursday December 10 2015, @10:18PM

    by module0000 (5955) on Thursday December 10 2015, @10:18PM (#274671)

    Is the background check a requirement for rifles as well now? I only ask because I've never had to deal with a background check for buying firearms, *except* when they were handguns. I think my most recent purchase was a 22 caliber rifle(a ruger 10-22), 7 years ago with no background check. That said, I've always had to get the background check when buying a handgun.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2015, @05:19AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2015, @05:19AM (#274819)

    If it shoots a bullet by action of a cartridge, and is ever in a dealer's inventory, it gets a background check. its been this way for decades.