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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, Interesting) by ikanreed on Thursday December 10 2015, @07:07PM
It makes no difference, except in that it reflects our terribly broken culture where a gun is an impulse acquisition. Say what you want on the nuances of when taking a life is justified and the power to do so sometimes being necessary, there's something incredibly, mind-numbingly crass about blind mass-marketing of that power.
Treating this particular symptom of an underlying social issue by way of censorship would be dumb, but there's something deeply fucked up going on here.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Thursday December 10 2015, @07:27PM
Horse hockey. Cheap handguns are $150 on up, a good revolver $350, things go up from there. That isn't quite an impulse buy.
As someone else has already said, the people buying off this channel have been thinking about it for a long time, have a short list of what they want, and the "impulse" is the price is lower than has been seen elsewhere.
Recent research has shown that 1 out of 3 Trump supporters is as stupid as the other 2.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Thursday December 10 2015, @07:28PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday December 10 2015, @07:31PM
Depends how poor you are. $150 is a half-decent bottle of wine, not exactly a large cost.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Thursday December 10 2015, @07:46PM
"half-decent"?
$150 is several damn good bottles of wine if you're not just collecting it to gather dust in a wine cellar.
If you're poor, you can buy boxed wine for less than $20, $150 keeps me in wine for several weeks... Mostly because I make my own though.
I have no comment or opinion on guns, but I'd assume that's the equilateral to buying a MasterCraft band saw vs. an Ultimate Craftex series. MasterCraft is dirt cheap in terms of tools and will get the job done, but there's no comparison to the professional Ultimate grade tools. MasterCraft is what you buy on impulse when you need a tool now. Ultimate is what you dream of at night and save for years to get.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @09:03PM
Your taste in wine is like my taste in guns.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday December 10 2015, @11:38PM
Please buy a fast car so you don't have to compensate in directions where I can tell you're full of it.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Friday December 11 2015, @05:52AM
You're being taken advantage of. Blinded studies confirm even wine "experts" can't tell the difference between different wines.
And, if you're a wine "collector", fine wine == tulipmania. Pray you're not the one left with the rotten grape juice if/when the bubble bursts.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ikanreed on Thursday December 10 2015, @07:32PM
I understand that justification and it's outright bullshit.
Someone with a shortlist like that isn't going to be watching TV for hours straight to find their target toy. The internet has that approach completely beat. This is for idiots with more money than sense just like QVC is and you know it.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday December 10 2015, @07:49PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday December 10 2015, @08:05PM
On what other criteria besides decisions is it even remotely appropriate to judge people? Judging people on what they choose to do is probably the most honest and fair way to go about the very necessary process. Certain kinds of choices merit different amounts of judgement, say, what you eat versus breakfast versus whether you abuse your children. But whatever criteria you use to judge people, and you're lying if you say you don't, is either based on their choices, or it's super shitty.
Or to be more snippy: you're judging me for my choice to judge people based on their decisions.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday December 10 2015, @09:04PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday December 10 2015, @09:14PM
Yeah, and there's a line somewhere in there between being totalitarian and being being reasonable.
And our fight here is that setting aside the 2nd amendment and its relationship to rule of law, I view limiting gun sales as more that latter and you view it as more the former.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday December 10 2015, @11:43PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday December 10 2015, @11:29PM
It took less than a minute to find an SNS for less than $120 online. And I don't even know any cheap brand names to ease my search (SNS was enough, it seems).
Local pawn shops, under the counter or no, can probably undercut that.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Nollij on Friday December 11 2015, @04:54AM
QVC and the like sell shitty jewelry for that price
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tramii on Thursday December 10 2015, @08:03PM
... it reflects our terribly broken culture where a gun is an impulse acquisition.
This statement only makes sense if you view guns as "evil" or if you somehow equate owning a gun with killing someone. If you view a gun as simply a tool, then it makes no sense at all.
Say what you want on the nuances of when taking a life is justified and the power to do so sometimes being necessary, there's something incredibly, mind-numbingly crass about blind mass-marketing of that power.
It's really sad that you have managed to equate gun ownership with murder in your own mind. I'm personally far more worried about the places that mass-market alcohol as an impulse item. I don't fear the sane/sober gun owner next door. I fear the crazy/drunk/high driver on the street.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday December 10 2015, @08:24PM
What kinda deluded paranoid world do you live in where "Say what you want on the nuances of when taking a life is justified and the power to do so sometimes being necessary" means "equate owning a gun with killing someone". I was totally clear on that distinction, and you still went "waaaaaaaaaaah no fair".
There is no amount of credit I can give you beneath "You're totally right in your decisions at all times" that's satisfactory to you. You won't get that much credit.
Now to answer your moral equivalence that you raised.
About 5% of American adults of have substance abuse issues. That's not a good thing, and I don't pretend it is. Alcohol does indeed rival firearms for per anum deaths, much like motor vehicles do. The numbers are very similar for all 3, actually, and all are dwarfed by big ones like heart disease and cancer. The biggest difference is that governmental interventions to reduce those deaths are accepted and encouraged. Whereas firearms are not. There's a slice of the country who cannot accept the day-to-day reality that firearm deaths are a big part of preventable deaths in the US. Because refusing to acknowledge that innocuous fact is important to the underlying ideology that they desperately want to believe. I would suspect from your outburst suggesting I equate you with a murderer that you are one of these people.
Guns are indeed tools. They're tools to cause death. A multitude of empirical evidence suggests that them being present in greater quantities in a population of people increases violent death in that population.
Can you reply again while A. respecting the words I've actually used without writing some fantasy onto them, and B. not using a single trite saying about guns?
I really really reaaaaaaaaaaaaally wish I could have a debate with one of you people where these kinds of basic facts aren't denied. But it's always instantly defensive and whiny and using simple thought terminating cliches about what guns are rather than any sort of sincere analysis of their impact. I don't like seeing you all as simpletons. It makes me feel supercilious and tendentious.
(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
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday December 10 2015, @11:55PM
I was going to reply to his "tool" comment with the question of which day-to-day problem a gun, as a tool, will help you solve: but I guess you mostly answered that already. A good butt will probably help you knock a nail into a soft wood, I guess, and maybe a single barrelled shot gun could be used to core an apple?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday December 11 2015, @01:39PM
Well there are some people who are avid hunters like myself, and there it is a tool for the legal harvest of wild game. Also there are places where dangerous wild animals live so carrying a magnum class handgun is just a good idea for personal protection which I do as well. Then again my firearms live happily in the very heavy fireproof safe when not being used for either of those activities.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday December 11 2015, @04:42PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Tramii on Friday December 11 2015, @05:39PM
... where "Say what you want on the nuances of when taking a life is justified and the power to do so sometimes being necessary" means "equate owning a gun with killing someone".
My comment was in response to "there's something incredibly, mind-numbingly crass about blind mass-marketing of that power [to kill]." I simply quoted the whole sentence in order to give context. But it's ok. I'll keep sentences short so you can understand. You equated gun ownership with the power to kill. You didn't acknowledge any other use for a gun. That's the part that is sad.
... governmental interventions to reduce [alcohol-related] deaths are accepted and encouraged ...
Some are, and some aren't. Remember Prohibition? I wonder if the public would accept having to register all your alcohol purchases. Would they submit to a several day background check before purchasing booze?
There's a slice of the country who cannot accept the day-to-day reality that firearm deaths are a big part of preventable deaths in the US.
Oh trust me, they accept it. They just don't think it's worth giving up freedom for a sense of safety. I mean, if we banned cars a lot of lives would be saved right? Why don't we do that? We don't even need to ban cars, just make the driver's test a lot more strict and force people to take the test every year. That way we can filter out unsafe drivers. You think the public would be ok with that? I mean, I'll save tons of lives, right?
Guns are indeed tools. They're tools to cause death.
Ok, nevermind. You are totally non-rational. You have a severe care of Hoplophobia and there's literally nothing anyone can say to change your mind.
B. not using a single trite saying about guns?
Ha! Hilarious! You don't see anything conflict between this statement and you previous statement that "Guns are indeed tools. They're tools to cause death"? Really? You are so deluded by your fear, there is no rational discourse to be had.
I accept that guns can be used to kill. I accept that if you are able to lower the amount of guns available, you will lower the amount of gun-related deaths. I question the idea that limiting gun access with result in a significant drop in deaths. I accept that it is quite possible to lower the amount of guns available to the law-abiding public. I question whether you could actually lower the amount of guns available to criminals. Whatever the results, I do not accept that it would be worth outlawing or limiting the access of guns except in extreme cases (like say to known, proven violent criminals).
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday December 11 2015, @05:46PM
You accept guns can be used to kill?
You accept that guns can be used to kill?
Hey guys? Did you know that forks can be used to eat? And weedwhackers can be used to trim plants? And vehicles can be used as transportation? Or stamps can be used to send letters?
What kind of dimwitted fuckwit are you that you have to treat acknowledging the primary functional purpose of something as this giant rhetorical giveaway that just taxes your integrity to an extreme to even acknowledge. I'm not sorry for this: you're a goddamn petty asshole.
(Score: 2) by Tramii on Saturday December 12 2015, @12:25AM
You posted:
There's a slice of the country who cannot accept the day-to-day reality that firearm deaths are a big part of preventable deaths in the US.
I posted:
I accept that guns can be used to kill.
I was agreeing with you. You claimed that there were people who would not accept the fact that guns kill, and I pointed out I was not one of them.
This is the second time you've taken something I've said and tried to twist it around it mean something else entirely. I think it's pretty clear that you have ceased thinking rationally. In fact, even though you blame other people for "A. [not] respecting the words I've actually used without writing some fantasy onto them, and B. not using a single trite saying about guns?" *you* are doing those exact things. The very qualities you claim to despise are the qualities your have demonstrated.
I'm probably wasting my time posting all this, since I can see that you don't want a rational discussion. You instead use strawman arguments, make ad hominem attacks and appeal to emotion, instead of having a civil discourse. I'll stop responding now since I can see I'm simply wasting my time.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday December 10 2015, @11:46PM
*slow hand clap*
Equating alcohol with both mental illness and with narcotics
Take a fucking bow.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Tramii on Friday December 11 2015, @05:17PM
Equating alcohol with both mental illness and with narcotics
Wow, that was a pretty huge mental leap. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_%28punctuation%29):
"The slash is most commonly used as the word substitute for 'or' which indicates a choice (often mutually-exclusive) is present."
Just because I fear bears and I fear drunk drivers, doesn't mean I equate drunk drivers with bears.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday December 12 2015, @01:43PM
tea/coffee/cocoa
dreams/potatoes/dipsticks
And why is one not odd, but the other odd? Exactly.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday December 10 2015, @08:06PM
Somehow I suspect that anyone watching this channel isn't about to make their first firearm purchase. Just sayin'.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday December 10 2015, @08:29PM
I would readily agree, except that that's a broad generalization, and nothing dealing with large populations is ever quite that clean cut.
Some people will be acquiring their first firearm that way. The channel almost certainly depends more on the people you describe for revenue, but I'd be quite comfortable in saying that first-time purchasers would make up some percentage of their audience, and I could give several just-so stories of the purchases that would form the exception.
And I won't be petty and pretend that your point is an irrelevant objection to mine, even though we both know that someone with enough intent to argue for the sake of arguing could do so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @09:18PM
The problem is that there are a lot of people on the fence about buying guns who instantly convert to impulse-buyers everytime the gun-grabbers get loud and try to push stupid laws.
Yeah, that's right, the gun-grabbers' hysteria is indirectly putting more guns in the hands of more people!
And about the law thing...laws which prevent people convicted of, say, domestic violence from buying guns are a good idea. Ones which prevent people from buying because somebody who didnt like them submitted an anonymous tip just to fuck with them, arent.
Ethanol-fueled