A & E's Guns in America Series

P

PKAY

New member
Well folks, I don't know if you've been following the subject five day TV "investigative report," but if you haven't don't waste your time. It's just another anti-gun HCI a** kissing love fest with the NRA cast as devil incarnate. I have, however, posted email to Investigative Reports Host, Bill Kurtis, as have thousands of others expressing my extreme displeasure at the biased, anti NRA propaganda set forth as truth. Pretty close to slander if you ask me. BTW, the posts are running about 95% or more critical of the program for the reasons mentioned above.

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Safe shooting - PKAY
 
LAst night was a farce. They showed several gang related shooting incidents and implied that the guns were the cause of the problem.

They showed footage from a gun shop that sold guns illegally. They did not tell you that it was the same gunshop twho's owner has closed up and has agreed to testify against the gun industry in order to have the charges dropped against him. He violated the law, and agian, they implied that it was somehow the gun industry's fault.

The one lady that they showed who had used a gun to defend herself, had done so illegally, and they were very ambiguous about whether or not it was a good thing. In my opoinion though, it was the episode's high point, as it stressed that the grand jury took no time at all to decide that she was justified. It really encouraged Concealed Carry for protection, from my point of view.

I really resented the portion of the show where they encouraged a wedge bewtee local LE and the gun owning public. But, that was to be expected.

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-Essayons
 
Rob - That's what I heard about last night's episode too. One "unintended consequence" the producers didn't expect, however, is that the NRA membership line has been swamped with new members and renewals! I hope that keeps up. It would be great to get up to 6 million members. We shall see.

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Safe shooting - PKAY
 
I was on a business conference call tonight and missed the episode, but I noticed that it comes on again in a few hours, so I am going to try to catch it....
 
the begining was intresting about the history of guns, then it turned into another commercial for sarah brady.

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NRA,GOA,ISRA,JPFO
 
IMO, Bill Kurtis is the wrong guy to do this A&E series. Throughout the series he betrays the fact that he has no feel at all for the profound principles and fundamental motivations of American gunownership. He has no idea what it means to be an average, law-abiding American who happens to own a gun for whatever reason.

Mr. Kurtis is out of touch with average Americans who are gunowners because he's not an average American. He's a member of our electronic media elite--not so lofty a member as Dan Rather or Diane Sawyer, but way above the local news anchor though with little more wisdom than the latter. Like most members of the media elite, Mr. Kurtis is privileged, protected, pretentious, corrupt with power (the power of the unchallenged broadcast word), and, of course, rich. He's a variant of the limousine liberal, that is, someone who affects to "care" about everyday people but whose power and wealth sublimely isolate him from the lives they lead. Not even his slick delivery can mask his social loftiness and, for that matter, his intellectual laziness.

Essentially, the entire series is nothing more than a pretentious rehash of the groupthink of Bill Kurtis's fellow elitists.

My $0.02.

[This message has been edited by jimmy (edited July 02, 1999).]
 
GUNS IN AMERICA.......The title betrays the intent. They focus on the gun. They focus on the gun as the problem. There was little mention of the problems that are at the root of this. Tonights episode will focus on children and guns..."YOUNG GUNS" is the title of this episode. If I may be so bold as to make a prediction, I would say that the focus will again be gun owners as the cause. Gun owners will be implied to be the cause of children killing children because we teach them how to properly and safly use guns...therefore WE are the problem. The whole focus of this program has been NRA, NRA, NRA, NRA and more NRA. Everything is NRA, NRA NRA. They keep repeating it to really make it sink in with people that it is the NRA's fault. I would like to ask the shows producers just why it is that the modern phenomena of children killing children has only happened in the last five or six years. Do you think that maybe there is a copycat nature to these attrocities? Do you think that maybe the media has the bloody hands here with their needless sensationalizing these killings to the point where children see this and go out and copy it?? There are now three cases here in California where children have been caught making plans on burning, shooting and blowing up their classmates. Some had already started to collect the materials to do it. I wonder where they got the ideas from????????? The MEDIA, MAYBE?????

The media is the real enemy to freedom and freedom loving gun owners!
 
I would like to ask the shows producers just why it is that the modern phenomena of children killing children has only happened in the last five or six years.

Actually, Frank, it's been going on for thousands of years; it's just that lately, the killers get more attention. Used to be we'd just lock 'em up and forget about 'em. Now we splash their faces all over the tube and magazine covers, leading other cretins to think, "Hey, that's cool!"

I read an article last week about how schools are the most stringently conformist organizations in the world; the ones who are different are instantly singled out and set upon by the mob (and yes, I have first-hand knowledge thereof). I'm not trying to apologize for the Columbine murderers, but they were harassed and beaten constantly, mostly by jocks, because they were different.

Looking at the situation in that light, of course kids are killing each other more frequently. They see others doing it, so they go with the flow.

Remember when we were asked "If your friends all decided to jump off a cliff, would you?"
Now the answer seems to be, "Why not? Everyone else is doing it."

[This message has been edited by Coinneach (edited July 02, 1999).]
 
I must express my dissappointment with the A&E series, also. Given A&E's record for great programming and more than often producing reporting programs that present the topics in a neutral format, I expected much, much more from them.

Peel away the images of funerals, crying parents, outraged community members, and self richeous politicians the producers did mention some actual facts. Although one had to look real hard to see them.
In the opening of the series, it was promised that the report would be an open and fair examination of American society and the role guns have played in the formation of our culture. Why did the producers only gloss over the fact that the murder rate in the US started to rise in 1986 when crack started polluting the streets? They also gave lip service to the fact that a majority of the gun related killings were over drugs and gang warfare. No where was it presented that in the 40 states that passed concelled carry, violent crime went down. Nor were crime stats from Mortens Grove, Ill. before and after the ban on firearms presented. Or what has been happening in Australia with their nation firearms ban.

AAgain, the producers failed to mention one basic fact, that is (I'm not sure of the actual numbers, but it will be close enough) there are 24 million guns in the US today. There are about 150 shootings per day in the US. This tells me that 23,999,850 firearms harmed no one on a particular day. That works out to the actual percentage of firearms used in illegal ways is .000006%. Can we say the same for automobiles?
 
Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the media is an enemy to freedom, Frank.
After all, they are also protected by one of the first ten constitutional amendments
that we all wrap ourselves in. Theirs is the first, ours is the second.

The problem is that the Fed in their infinite(simal) wisdom repealed the law that
stated that the media had to present both sides of a political story. That's why there
is no longer necessarily an opposing party comment after something like the
state of the union address. Unfortunately, now the media is more powerful than ever
and they truly are a great enemy of the second amendment. The majority of the media
is very liberal and what little conservative media you can find is small-time or
perceived as having an adjenda. Only the big liberal media is looked upon as
the voice of truth by the majority of sheeple (I love that term) in our great country.

This does have interesting connotations though. The Fed effectively passed a law
that guaranteed true freedom of the press. Less restrictions equals more freedom.
At the same time the Fed is trying to pass laws that will take away freedom to keep
and bear arms. More restrictions equals less freedom.

Apparently not all amendments are created equal.....
 
Well,just fired off an e-mail to A&E regarding this series. I congratulated them on their modern form of "McCarthyism"(Carolyn that is)against law abiding gun owners.
 
Joe, you're off by an order of magnitude. There are estimated to be 200,000,000 firearms, owned by 80,000,000 people. This includes firearms that have been passed down from generation to generation.

I suspect that I'm not unusual in this forum; I own 10 firearms.
 
I wonder if I could get a little help from PKAY or Contender or anyone else for that matter. I would also like to send an e-mail to A&E about this abomination of a series. The only place I could really find to do this was: http://www.aande.com/feedback/other.feedback.html
This was a general comments section about nothing in particular. I couldn't find anything specific about their Guns in America series.

If someone could please help with some info on who to write to and/or where to post an opinion, I am sure there are plenty of others who would like to give some feedback.
 
Coinneach;
You are right, I should have said "the modern phenomena of children goin into schools and commiting mass murder". That would have been a more accurate statement.

The title of the show, "GUNS IN AMERICA" focuses on guns as the problem. Not only does this place blame where it shouldn't belong it causes the real problems to be overlooked. What we need them to do is focus on the "MEDIA IN AMERICA" and the damaging changes they have wrought on our society. From changing attitudes on abortion, demonizing the church, chipping away at our second amendment rights, calling flag burning free speech while outlawing cross burning, giving over US troops to the UN or NATO to fight battles where no American interests are at stake, to punk kids with spiked haidoos, 50 earings in each ear, glorifing drug use, percing tungues as normal, teaching that being queer is OK, etc, etc the media has had its effect in changing America. And not always for the better!! You can bet your life they will never report on the negative changes they have wrought!!
 
Bluesman - I just went to the A&E home page where there was an image of a handgun as well as other images denoting certain of the programming currently on A&E. Each image was accompanied by some verbiage relating to the program associated with it. Clicking on the handgun takes you to a page about the program, Guns in America, and has an "Ask Bill Kurtis" or some such hot link to a forum where one can ask a question or make a comment. One can also respond to comments already posted by others in addition to making one's own. Bill Kurtis is supposed to respond to "selected" inquiries by July 12th. Since by now there are many thousands of comments posted, how Billy boy intends to "select" some, and those he intends to respond to may be very interesting. I don't know if I read it on this board or Shooters, but I understand in an interview on TV, Kurtis admitted to "...owning a rifle, but I've never shot it." Whatever the he** that fence sitting piece sh*t comment is supposed to mean.

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Safe shooting - PKAY
 
Just finished watching the last episode.

Did anyone catch the veiled threat Kurtis made at the end of the show about the tobacco industry and how it was defeated.

How about the little girl in the Hunting class.

This series was far from objective, it was definitely anti gun. However I believe that Kurtis believes that his report was objective and doesn't realize how slanted it was.

He played up to every fear tactic used by the HCI crowd. His body language and facial expressions speak volumes about his true feelings. This show was damaging to the second amendment.

I guess we can't expect anything less from the current Media culture. I wish our side could get equal time.
 
K80GOFF, welcome to the brave new world order. They really are out to seperate you from your guns and they will use the media to do it. Just like they have used the media to change society, they will use it to remove you from your gun rights........more to lead society down the path that they see as the right way. But you must give up your gun rights. If I have to choose, I will choose the second amendment over the first. Plain and simple, I am sick and tired of gun owners loosing their rights to a bunch of liberal media controlling new age jerks who think they know what is right for me! Like I said before, I want to uphold all of our rights but it is fast getting to the point where I refuse to speak up for the first amendment when we seem powerless to have an equal voice and they continue to engage in unconstitutional acts by trying to deny me my firearms rights!! Just what is it you hold dear???? The rights of a few liberal media owners to attack you and your rights or the rights of 270 million to own firearms. You MUST CHOOSE!
 
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