Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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."


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday December 11 2015, @07:20AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Friday December 11 2015, @07:20AM (#274851)

    Nobody can say I ain't a giver. Google is yer bud, learn to use it. Allow me to demonstrate. According to motherjones.com (your team) Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence was founded as Legal Community Against Violence in SanFran (full of pinks) in consultation with Handgun Control Inc, I'm sure you what name they operate under now. A more wretched hive of scum and villainy won't be found outside Mos Eisley. Google will also show you joint projects they undertake. In short, a Brady front group. What is it with the constant name churn? Same reason as the endless front groups, old Communist Party tactic, look that up in Google while you are confirming what I'm telling ya. Can't find current funding and most important WHO is bankrolling them but in 2013 they took in about $1M. But do we really need to invest the time to discover what we already can guess with a high degree of certainty? Same funders as Brady.

    In penance, you get to do the next part of the research. Here are the top five principles I dig up on LCPGV, you go look them up and see how many links to the rest of the Prog hive you find. Bonus for every one also directly working for other Brady, Bloomberg or Soros related groups.

    ROBYN THOMAS
    FREDERICK BROWN
    CAROL KINGSLEY
    RODERICK THOMPSON
    CHARLES EHRLICH

    I am only familiar with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence from its web page..

    You took their web page at face value? I don't know whether to give you a pitying look or doubting one. But I'm being generous tonight so pity it is. So here is some free wisdom. They are SJWs. Everybody, one more time, what do SJWs do?

    The Three Laws of SJW:

    1. SJWs always lie.

    2. SJWs always double down.

    3. SJWs always project.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by eof on Friday December 11 2015, @04:19PM

    by eof (5559) on Friday December 11 2015, @04:19PM (#275009)

    Again, an over the top response. You have indicated name changes and made an implication it is done for nefarious purposes. This suggest more an axe to grind on your part rather than any indictment of the organization. I have yet to see any suggestion that they want to have an outright ban on guns; there is no evidence of this on their site. So you know, I don't care what anyone believes on this issue. I do care that statements made are supportable.