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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 Runaway1956 on Friday December 11 2015, @02:30AM
Only a hoplophobe wants to compare the "harm done by any form of weapon". My weapons are all well behaved. None of them hops off the shelf when I am absent, to go wandering the streets, searching for a victim. That's because weapons are inanimate objects, with no motive to kill. A human being has to pick that weapon up, and use it, before another person dies.
Murder rates count. Dead bodies count. The weapon of choice hardly matters.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday December 11 2015, @08:09AM
WTF, Runaway! Are you _asking_ to be doxed? So far we know, you have guns, they are on a shelf, and you do not expect them to go wandering the streets! Can you not see that this is an invitation to a gun robbery? Where do you think criminals get guns? Can they pass background checks? Oh, yeah, mostly they do. But that is not the point here! Now everyone knows that all they have to to is pin an actual name, and address, and shelf, on Runaway1953 (I am trying to help, security through obscurity) and bingo they have themselves some nice .45 action (seriously! you gave away the model, caliber, and cartridge right here on SoylentNews! My god, man!).
I see only one option now. Stop posting here. Change your real name, move out of your house, and move to someplace like Alaska. Everyone in Alaska is there to avoid firearm theft in the state they come from, so you will fit right in. But keep the large caliber guns, though. 9mm does not stop a Griz, or a Moose, or an Alaskan.
(Score: 2) by eof on Friday December 11 2015, @04:14PM
Reading comments on this site, I don't know if you are kidding or not. Just in case, I will edit my offending sentence: Only counting fatalities does not fully reflect the harm done done by humans using any form of weapon.