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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 Nollij on Friday December 11 2015, @05:04AM
One of you doesn't know the definition of "rate". [thefreedictionary.com]
If we are 50x the size, and we have 50x the gross, then we have the same rate.
If we are 50x the size, and 100x the gross, then we do not have the same rate.
Since you asked, this has a nice breakdown by country [wikipedia.org]. The US has a significantly higher rate (per capita) than anywhere listed in Europe, but lower than many parts of South/Central America, and parts of Africa.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 11 2015, @02:40PM
And Chicago has a much higher rate of gun murder than the rest of the nation. Remove Chicago from the US rate, and we move much, much closer to that of Great Britian.
Of course, there is dishonesty about Britian and Europe's "civilized" nations murder rates. Great Britain simply doesn't count their murder rate the same as we do.
When we start comparing apples to apples, I'll be ready to join the discussion. So long as the "progressive" element of our society insists on comparing apples to alligators, we can have no discussion.