60 minutes
For those who didn’t see the 60 Minutes show yesterday, or for those
who did, but would like to see it again or see some of the additional
footage not shown on television, click here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/09/60minutes/main4931769.shtml?tag=topStories;secondStory
or here:
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If you compare the 60 Minutes show to the 20/20 show last Friday,
there isn’t really a comparison: 20/20 was a reprehensible “hit
piece,” plain and simple, showing the media at their very worst.
20/20 had an agenda and didn’t want to drift off message by giving
both sides equal time.
60 Minutes, while it had its flaws, did give gun owners pretty fair
coverage. They spent a lot of time researching the issues and came up
with some good questions that I’m glad they asked. As a bonus, they
even asked the antis a tough question about Cho getting his gun from a
licensed dealer and pointing out that gun shows had nothing to do with
what happened at Virginia Tech. The antis aren’t used to tough
questions, as they are virtually always treated with kid gloves by the
media.
Colonel Massengill’s comments reminds me of why I started laughing
when a reporter last year made a comment about Massengill being on the
pro-gun side. Certainly 60 Minutes didn’t make that mistake.
Massengill, during his interview, didn’t point out, of course, that
people from other states can buy long guns in Virginia, as long as
their state considers that allowable. Not did he point out that they
might be there to buy things such as ammunition, holsters, or just be
window shopping. This is America and people do cross state lines to
go shopping form time to time.
Omar Samaha, the brother of a murdered student at Virginia Tech, keeps
changing his story on how many guns he bought at the gun show (with
$5,000 given to him by ABC) and other details of that event.
On 60 Minutes and in front of the General Assembly, he says he bought
a dozen guns in a hour. On 20/20 it was 10.
On 20/20, Samaha said he was told by one private seller that for
another $100, Samaha wouldn’t have to show any ID. On 60 Minutes,
that amount was now reduced to $15.
Some who saw the show were left with the mistaken impression that
Samaha bought his ten (or was it twelve or ??) guns from dealers and
that it was also a dealer who said he would look the other way on
Samaha not showing his ID for $100 (or was it $15?). It would have
been much better if 60 Minutes had made it crystal clear that the guns
were all bought from private sellers.
It was telling when Lesley Stahl asked Virginia Tech survivor, Lily
Habtu, about how the antis failed to close the “gun show loophole”
when “You had so much going for you. You had the emotion…” Yes,
emotion was the first thing that comes to mind because antis count on
emotional appeal as their main leverage to justify gun control.
One thing that drives me nuts about the segment is that gun
organizations are always referred to as the “gun lobby,” while antis
doing the exact same thing, are not. And 60 Minutes fell into that
mindset.
Oh, and there is Senator Feinstein saying that police are outgunned.
Too bad she didn’t see the video of police with all kinds of weaponry
responding to some of the recent shootings that were shown just before
her interview. To say the police are outgunned is ridiculous. But,
that’s the good Senator for you.
Feinstein then quickly jumps into the anti-gunner’s staple: emotion.
She starts talking about the funeral of four officers murdered by a
paroled, illegally armed felon in California.
Ms. Feinstein, gun owners don’t like seeing such funerals any more
than you do. But we don’t like seeing funerals of regular citizens
who have been murdered by a maniac in a gun-free zone, either.
There was a factual error in the report. 60 Minutes made it sound
like the Clinton Assault Weapon Ban had removed military lookalike
rifles from the market, which is not true. Such guns were actually
cheaper back then than they are currently.
There is a segment on the 60 Minutes web site titled, “Guns and Ammo”
that you might want to watch. Lesley asks me why anyone would need a .
50 BMG rifle…
Finally, when the 60 Minutes crew arrived and look around the show,
they were surprised that it wasn’t anything like they expected. I
guess they were looking for gun shows to be some kind of secret club
for gun owners. At first they thought they were onto something. One
of them noticed that everyone attending had some kind of tattoo. Then
they realized that it was only the hand stamp that everyone got when
they purchased a ticket and entered the show.
When they told me about that incident, we all had a good laugh and the
cameras began rolling shortly thereafter.
Thanks to C&E Gun Shows and to Dominion Shooting Range for allowing
their facilities to be used. Two of the C&E owners, Steve and Annette
Elliott, are interviewed in the segment “The Call to Arms” on the 60
Minutes web site.
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Dave Workman, senior editor of Gun Week and communications Director
for CCRKBA, wrote this article on the show:
The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !
