Open carry segment on PBS Friday 5/7/10

[basicblur]

You might want to set your DVRs?
Check your local listings-Southern VA Comcast shows it on @ 8:30pm to 9:30pm tonight on channel 4/WBRA and 11pm to 12 midnight on channel 3/WUNC

Nothing @ Need To Know site now but teasers-I assume after the show airs you'll be able to see it online (along with segments not shown on TV)?

Might not hurt to have some duct tape handy in case your head explodes :banghead: as I see from their site (bold italics mine):
How do gun owners really feel about gun control?
April 30th, 2010
Members of the National Rifle Association and, say, residents of the Upper West Side of Manhattan might disagree on certain aspects of gun control legislation. But as Republican pollster Frank Luntz tells Need to Know, they’re actually much closer than you think. Luntz surveyed gun owners on their attitudes toward what he calls “common-sense gun legislation” and got some surprising results.

You can find a copy of the poll, which was commissioned by the pro-gun control group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, here.

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VCDL EM and his daughter featured on PBS tonight!
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VCDL EM and his 12-year-old daughter are featured on PBS's "Need to know" tonight (check your local listings)! The VCDL name will probably also be prominent in the piece.

EM sent this email to the EMs this morning:

As a gun owner and gun right's advocate, I was contacted by a new PBS web/TV news magazine about doing a story. I agreed. It started off with an Open Carry Litter pick-up on Route 7 under the Adopt-a-Highway program, followed by lunch at a Restaurant in Reston and then to a local shooting range with a NY Camera crew that have never fired a gun before. (They left with GUNS Save Lives Magnets, VCDL Magnets and GUNS Save Lives Safety Vests!) I even wore my VCDL T-shirt.

The next day the crew was at my house bright and early to watch my family at breakfast. They interviewed my 12 year old daughter and then a 1 hour interview with me in my living room. Later that day they followed me to get my haircut (one customer did not like my Open Carrying) and continued to follow me to the store to pick up some more Tactical pants and getting fuel for my car.

Finally, they followed me while unarmed at the Second Amendment March in DC.

I will be on the new shows premiere on Friday, May 7th on PBS (check your local listings for time and channel) I am told the piece will be 12-14 minutes and what they don't show will be available on the web.

EDIT: I downloaded and skimmed the poll (13 page PDF) and what I gather from a quick read is if NRA members are "nuts" like some portray us, then the majority of Americans must also be since poll results for NRA and non-NRA members are close. 'Course, it will be interesting to see how King Michael and his minions spin it?
As usual, if I were asked some of the questions on the poll I'd have to ask for clarification before answering.

 

[Mike J]

Sounds interesting. I didn't look at the results of Mayor Bloombergs poll but I wouldn't but anything he is associated with is pretty much discredited in my eyes.

 

[Manco]

I get the impression from reading the results that most gun owners, NRA members or otherwise, actually believe that gun-control laws can help keep guns out of the hands of criminals. How naive of them, playing right into the hands of those who would take their guns away if given half a chance.

 

[Uhrmacher]

That poll seems a bit off to me...

47% of non-NRA and 30% of NRA support

A federal law making it illegal to manufacture, sell, or possess semi-automatic weapons, sometimes known as “assault rifles.”

But 92% and 95% agree that there is a

constitutional right to keep a loaded handgun at home for self-defense

Must be a lot of single action revolver fans in there if they want a handgun but say semi-automatics are assault weapons and must be banned.

 

[Werewolf]

Can anyone say PUSH POLL?

 

[Kentucky_Rifleman]

I don't know if I want to see this show or not. My blood pressure has already been running a little high this week

KR

 

[John Parker]

follow me to the store to pick up some more Tactical pants

....NICE.....

 

[c919]

Just watched it....

Every time I see that idiot Bloomberg I can't help but to yell at the tv. Anybody else have that issue?

 

[skipbadger]

....NICE.....

x2. Of all the stuff he could have done that day! Why not go to Home Depot to buy some mulch? Or the grocery store to buy some milk and eggs? Or the flower shop to get roses for his wife?

Tactical pants? Should have picked up some nice dual thigh holsters for his glocks as well.

 

[Husker_Fan]

Actually, it wasn't too bad.

 

[pty101]

most of those questions aren't as simple as they made them And the full video is up if anyone wants to watch it

the oc part starts around 13:00

 

[cambeul41]

the full video is up if anyone wants to watch it

I looked but didn't find it. I would appreciate a title, link, or video number.

Thanks

 

[Mike J]

pty-Do you have a link?

 

[cambeul41]

Is this it? Or something else?

"How do gun owners really feel about gun control?"

http://video.pbs.org/video/1482096966/

 

[pty101]

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/video/

heres the link. It didnt start the first time I clicked it so you might have to try it a couple times

 

[R3dundantC]

Actually, it wasn't too bad.

I thought it was fairly well balanced (until Bloomberg got on). It at least gave our side a chance and didn't stray heavily to one side or the other.

 

[tpaw]

Every time I see that idiot Bloomberg I can't help but to yell at the tv. Anybody else have that issue?

He is a pompus ass worth BILLION$ and very dangerous to folks like you and I.
If he could disarm the entire US, he would. BUT, his body guards would be armed! And probably so would he....

 

[JoeSlomo]

I thought it was fairly well balanced (until Bloomberg got on). It at least gave our side a chance and didn't stray heavily to one side or the other.

Well, it most CERTAINLY could have been worse, however, in my eyes, it served as a story for the gun control crowd rather than as an unbiased look at the issue.

 

[Big Boy]

Well, it wasn't blatantly against guns, but it was rather biased in it's portrayal.

The interviewer also generally skipped over questions provided to him. He gave a simple "hmm" to the question of whether it would have been good for someone to have a gun on the planes that hit the twin towers.

I guess it's always going to be this way, that people just defy logic, but how can the interviewer even ask "Why do you think you need a gun sitting right here in this restaurant?" Ask Suzanna Gratia Hupp why she would have needed a gun at that Luby's cafe in Texas, ask the kids at Virginia Tech why they would have needed a gun while sitting in class, ask the people at Fort Hood why they might have needed a gun. I mean, they where right there on a military base. That's surely a safe place. That one guy's point was good. "It's like a fire extinguisher" How often do we expect our local Wal-Mart to catch on fire? Never. But there's a whole ton of fire extinguishers strapped to poles around that building. Just in case.

It's like people are in a dream state. Statistics are just that, statistics. It means there IS a chance. No matter how low it may be, it could always happen to you until there are no statistics, and no chances, which will obviously never happen. They say it's a very low chance of someone trying to hurt you. However they push the very low statistics of accidental gun deaths in our face all of the time. It's simply illogical and foolish.

 

[stickhauler]

"Balanced?" I'm not sure I'd give it that high praise, the dude with the cane in the store (can't remember what kind) whose "that gun is dangerous, he's got the hammer back, what happens if it falls on the floor, this town is a peaceful place, you don't need to carry that" clearly made the airing because it was what the producer wanted to convey. That people carrying guns are over reacting, and that "regular" folks are scared because people are carrying guns.

Bloomberg's segment of the show was a tough time for my wife. I kept stopping the DVR to rebut his lies, so much that possibly a 6 minute segment took about a half hour for us to watch.

 

[Manco]

This might have been at least partially an act for effect, but I like how the interviewer near the end of the open carry segment seems to struggle terribly to comprehend the value of carrying a gun for self-defense (the specific hypothetical example being carrying guns on airplanes during 9/11). At the very end he seemed to have a slight epiphany, and whether or not it was an act, it pretty much mirrored the process that I imagine we here hope most anti-gunners will go through in eventually accepting our reasoning. All in all, aside from a few needless shots taken at our cause, it was a fairly evenhanded report on open carry, self-defense, and gun ownership in America. Well, at least it was relative to what I expected, anyway....

The highlight, in my view, was definitely how well the gun owners and advocates who appeared in the segment represented our community and cause.

 

[JellyJar]

One thing that really stood out in my mind was when Jon Meacham stated that guns "caused" gundeaths.

Guns can no more "cause" death or violence than knives, forks and spoons can cause fat people to be fat.

 

[basicblur]

For those of you who missed it, here’s the specifics

Entire video now online at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/video/
The Open Carry Segment starts at the 12:30 mark and is about 18 minutes long.

Just a few thoughts after watching and reading some of the posts in here:

Things I didn’t like:
1. Some posters are making fun/lamenting the video showing him buying a pair of “tactical pants”…really? If you hadn’t read my original posting where he tells that’s what he was doing, could you tell what kind of pants he was buying? I couldn’t.
2. PBS was doing pretty good ‘til the drive by shooting of the NRA at the 19:15 mark-“a belief no doubt stoked by the NRA’s intense and often misleading attack ads that ran during the 2008 campaign”. The short snip of an NRA ad than ran with this sound bite I’m rather familiar with-mebbe they ought to explain how the NRA is “often misleading”?
3. The guy at the barber freaking out ‘bout his gun being “cocked” (notice how the woman working there laughed and said “it has a safety on it”). It would have been nice for him to point out how safe it really was due to both the thumb and grip safety, but I realize the producers have only so much time (or don’t want him to explain).
4. Wayne LaPierre refused to be interviewed by them. Now mebbe Wayne is going to blow it off as not being able to get a fair shake, but when they’re going to trot out Bloomberg et al, you don’t have that luxury. If he couldn’t make it, send someone else in his place! Much as I like a lot of what the NRA does, I’m not impressed with LaPierre as a spokesman in the interviews and debates I’ve seen him in. Heck-I’m no Ted Nugent fan, but both he (and the VCDL member in the story) do/did a better job of countering the typical arguments the anti-2nd folks always throw out there.

Some things I did like:
1. Ed Levine (the VCDL member) and the carriers at the restaurant I thought did an excellent job fielding questions.
2. Watching the PBS interviewer dodge Larry Pratt’s question and his comment ‘bout someone having a gun would be preferable to flying a plane into an office building. This is where the interviewer nods his head, but I don’t know if it was a “he’s got me there” nod or whether he just (FINALLY) had an epiphany!
3. This could go in either column, but I had to laugh at the 27:30 mark where Bloomberg says “I don’t think I should be telling another state what to do”.

One thing I would like to see you folks put in your arsenal-when someone asks you (as the interviewer did in the restaurant), “what are the odds of someone coming in here and ?”, I’d tell him mebbe he's asking the wrong question-we shouldn’t be asking ourselves what are the odds, but rather what are the consequences (if I cannot defend myself and family)?

 

[Manco]

One thing that really stood out in my mind was when Jon Meacham stated that guns "caused" gundeaths.

Guns can no more "cause" death or violence than knives, forks and spoons can cause fat people to be fat.

Yeah, unfortunately it's pretty well ingrained into much of American culture these days. People use such phrases very glibly and believe them without questioning their truth through critical thinking. :banghead: This is why even though part of me thinks that the open carry movement hurts our cause, in a way we need people who are willing to throw the prejudice of others back in their faces, while at the same time provoking discussion and re-acclimating the culture into accepting guns as an intrinsic part of American life.

Perhaps the epiphany that I alluded to earlier was totally earnest after all, as surely it wasn't intended as rhetoric in favor of guns for self-defense. In that case, it's actually pretty hilarious how tongue-tied yet oh-so-thoughtful the guy looked when presented with simple, irrefutable points that he was strongly against, prejudicially, for no good reason at all. Watch it in the video, starting at 24:15.

 

[Uhrmacher]

I thought the open carry guy they followed around did great, but I have to rant about Bloomberg...

He was infuriating with no one to refute his nonsense about dealers being able to conduct mass sales as "private" with no regulation. Even an ATF spokesman could have shot that statement full of holes.

Then he does the same old emotional song and dance of telling everyone how stupid/unpatriotic they are if they don't support banning sales to people on the "no fly list" without mentioning the fact that being put on the list requires no evidence or judicial process and false positives are common.

I also wished I could have been the interviewer reading that letter (press release really) quote where Bloomberg threw in "[people would be harmed], including many children" so I could ask him whether he can explain how that has any relevance to the situation at hand or if he is simply that appallingly uncreative in his attempts at manipulation.