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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."
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday December 10 2015, @10:47PM
I find myself arguing on the "anti-gun" side frequently. Not because I'm actually anti-gun, I'm a bit on the fence there, but because the arguments presented are always so specious.
I find poor logic infuriating.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday December 11 2015, @12:09AM
So I also end up quite anti-gun too. And my gun-owning friends know that. And yet, during a transition period, they came to me to ask them to host their gun club's website - which I happily did, obviously.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Friday December 11 2015, @02:02AM
This is going to make me sound totalitarian as fuck, but I actually really liked the soviet model of community armories. You check a gun out when you need one for hunting or other sport, then return it when you're done. You check one out longer term if there's a known threat to your life. Then if something goes down while you have a gun checked out, the authorities swing by. And everyone is expected to come grab them in case of invasion or whatever.
It seems like it suits what the American right wing uses guns for quite a bit, but they'd never agree to it. It covers everything but generic home invasion fears and overthrowing the government, and to be honest, they're the last people I'd want doing that.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday December 11 2015, @08:44AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves