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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 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.