Dateline - "In The Line Of Fire"

[TMB2]

Be prepared for another hatchet job disguised as a "report!"
SUNDAY, MARCH 4 - 8:00 PM ET
In the Line of Fire
"Correspondent Maria Shriver reports on an in-depth look at guns and young people in the United States. ”Dateline NBC” examined gun-related deaths throughout the nation over the course of one week. Remarkably, of those killed by gunfire in this short period of time, 35 of them were under the age of 20. What if anything can be done about these tragedies?"

 

[Gunslinger]

As taken from another board (Sandy's), they were at the Barrett shop where the owner very graciously took time from his busy schedule to spend the day with them and allowed them access to the shop. I also understand from reported previews to the show that the Barrett shop tour/interview will be part of the program aired.
We will see how the program goes but if they attack gun owners and use their Barrett experience as an example they, obviously, have no shame. It sounds as though the owner and employees welcomed them and went out of their way in order to accomadate them.

 

[SnakeLover]

There was a snipet on this morning as I was getting ready for church. The exerpt went like this...Some teenager from Buffalo, NY takes dad's gun (dad is a cop) from a locked case (dad doesn't know how he got in)and takes mom's car and drives across country. Dad puts kids name in runaway list which goes out nationwide, saying he might be armed. Cop in midwest(KS?) sees kid walking along road and approachs. Kid shoots officer (21 yrs old) who dies. Manhunt locates kid in a ditch few hours later. Kid fires at cops who return fire and kill the kid. So that's 2 of the dead.

From this example, there appears to be no gun law on the books which would have prevented this from happening. Though since it is a Kennedy (Maria Shriver) reporting, on a liberal station (NBC), anyone think this report will be twisted??

Snake

 

[Hard Ball]

They have no shame!

 

[LilJoe]

Dateline

As we sit here and watch this, we see how the change the words to make it sound as if guns are the problem. But to me it seems like the biggest problem is GUN EDUCATION.

Suicides- People kill themselves many ways from pills or drugs, knives and razors, bridges and buildings. If someone wants to kill themselves they will find a way. Whether there are guns are not.

Robberies- Well you point a weapon at someone you just sign your fate.

Gang related- They say there is a war against gangs. They can go around an shoot people.. Why not give the victims that are not gang involved the chance to shoot back? And the ones that are involved in the gangs.... Don't they bring it among themselves for getting involved in them..

Accidental shootings- Now there, there is NO REASON for. This falls under 100% lack of education. The schools teach sport in gym and sex education in class WHY don't we teach gun safety at home and at school just to make sure the ones that have parents that don't care don't miss out. We teach our kids in school not to talk to strangers and to tell a teacher or policeman.. Why don't we do the same with guns?

For the woman from Texas that shot her little boy with a 12 guage just so the father wouldn't get custody. She shot two people for no true reason and only had a one time fine of $45 for the second offence. The sister even tried to warn authorities of it and they did nothing. No there was a true problem.. For the woman the death penalty will take to long!

Once again they prove that guns aren't the problem but people and society are the problem.. Instead of more gun laws lets try a true manditory gun EDUCATION if you like guns or not.

Just our two cents!

 

[ArmySon]

Suicides – How will a three day waiting period prevent suicides? If the individuals is that mentally unstable, they will find alternative ways to kill themselves.

 

[Ironbarr]

Ho Hum...

For those who missed it - http://www.msnbc.com/news/533490.asp.

That all I have to say.

 

[Herodotus]

I saw the last 15 minutes or so of the program.
It was a complete hatchet job on Democracy, the American People and our Constitution.
I had never seen a show by this Maria Shriver before, but she is a true fascist and a great enemy of ourselves. She had all the true beliving ferocity and terrible single mindedness of real Nazi ideologue of the 30's and it was a chilling thing to behold for a man whose mind runs along the traces of history still left for us to observe.
I assume the show, which I take was put together last year, was meant to be part of a great attack upon our Civil Liberties under what they hoped would be a Gore administration and a Democratic Congress. We can thank Devine Providence that their fantasy has crashed in the reality of the choices made by our American people in the last election. One has to wonder if what one senses in this show is just the tip of the iceberg of what would have been in store for us if our fellow countrymen, along with most on this board, had not sensed in their own ways at least some of the danger signals that were clearly being emitted from the government that they so narrowly and improbably have just disposed.
So let this Fascist Maria Shriver rave, but remember the raving has been greatly blunted by the American people themselves and don't forget that their good judgement is always our ultimate ace in the hole.

 

[sigmund]

Following is the text of my e-mail to dateline@nbc.com:

Sunday's Dateline displayed the journalistic sensationalism and irresponsibility that gave the National
Enquirer a bad name. The show consisted of a series of horror stories about kids and guns with little
context or explanation. The presentation (the spoken text, the graphics, the video clips) was biased to give
the perception that the problem was guns, not people. The show talked about "...gun mayhem against
young people..." What I saw was people's mayhem against each other, and against themselves.

The 35 kids dead in a week, admittedly horrifying, was out of context and therefore ultimately
meaningless. How many kids died in that week from other causes? How many died from parental neglect
and abuse, from drugs, from car accidents, from fire, or from stabbing and beatings? How many killed
themselves in other ways? How many of these deaths, gun related and otherwise, were a result of people
breaking the law? More laws, an implicit conclusion of the program, are meaningless if not obeyed.

The problem with these 35 deaths was not guns. The problem was people who knowlingly violated the
law or stupidly violated basic safety rules. The result is the same in either case, whether applied to a gun
or a car or any other potentially dangerous machine.

 

[JimR]

Typical slant from the media.

I took some rough notes on a couple of index cards. None of this is particularly definitive, just my personal take-aways that I wanted to offer for consideration.

35 deaths in a week among young people, with guns as the means.

• About 1/4 of the cases presented were suicides. Japan has several times the U.S.'s suicide rate, and a very small percentage of their suicides involve a gun.
  
• About 10% were justified shoots against people involved in criminal activity, i.e. robbing a store, shooting at cops.
  
• About 1/3 were gang and/or drug related, with more than half of those likely to be gang members (as opposed to bystanders and non-gang targets of gun violence). This isn't a "gun culture" problem, this is an inner city culture problem.
  
• About 10% of the cases were unsafe handling of firearms by kids who should have known better. In some of the cases, the parents were aware that the kids had access to firearms. We need better firearms safety training (4 rules) among the general populace.
  
• None of the "shop owner defends self against a robbery" cases were chosen for in-depth coverage. Hmmm, I wonder why not? Perhaps because those wouldn't give the "correct" spin?
  
• They claim this was an "average" week, with 35 deaths of young people caused by firearms. Whose statistics? Is this accurate?

Dang! I just realized I didn't take notes on advertizers. Did anyone else? Would like to email them, cc'ing NBC. I don't think there's much use in emailing NBC.

 

[BadMedicine]

Suicides, gang/drug deals gone bad, and robberies, and shoot outs with police should not go under the guise of "these guns are murdering our babies."

This kinda shady reporting makes me wanna [edited by Long Path: commit an attocious act with a firearm, presumably to demonstrate the futility of such dealings.] hehe (sour humor) These people have no honor

[Edited by Long Path on 03-05-2001 at 11:34 AM]

 

[tuc22]

Mr. and Mrs. Joe Public and their kids learned gun safety from their television. Isn't it fitting that the television needs to show them the wickedness of their ways?

 

[scud]

They aren't done yet. They went by Barrett's the other day too. I think it was a bad idea to talk with them but evidentely the bosses thought they could get the upper hand. Problem is that on the cutting room floor anything you say can and will be used against you. Look for the story at the end of the month.
http://assaultweb.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/201790.html

 

[Mike in VA]

While there were many tragedies in the story, as many have pointed out, most were stupidity, lack of training & discipline, or murder. The suicides, well, the truly determined will find a way. Sure, 35 'young people' died by gunshot, they completely ignored the number of people who were saved by guns that week. There was that one shop keeper who killed a 'kid' who was robbing her at gunpoint, but there was no acknowledgement her the right of self defense. The show was a travesty, NBC has no honor. M2

 

[Charmedlyfe]

I E-mailed them. Told 'em how it was a DURN good thing that I was more honest as a cop then they were as reporters. And left my full name. COME GET SOME, YOU LIBERAL HACKS!!!!!

 

[Guyon]

Here are the advertisers for that anti-gun attack that NBC put on in the place of objective reporting.

The events NBC reported were sad, but instead of really honing in on problems and proposing solutions (education, safe handling, parental responsibility), the piece continued to cast all guns in a negative light. Clearly the intermediate video clips and graphics were meant to villify guns. At one point, when the announcer pointed out that one of the shooters reloaded a .22 rifle, the video showed someone reloading a pump shotgun. Seems a .22 cartridge wasn't dramatic enough.

What are the chances of the networks devoting a show to all the lives that were saved by guns during a week in 2000?

Advertisers follow:


Glade Plug ins
Lipitor Drugs
Pontiac Montana(GM)
Microsoft Enterprise Software
Softsoap
Starkist Tuna
MSNBC
AFLAC insurance
Ethan Allen Furniture
Lowe's Home Improvement
Radio Shack
Purina One Dogfood
IBM
AT&T(What a surprise)
Henry Ford
Serta Mattresses
Ziplock
Olive Garden
Toyota SUVS
Universal Studio Orlando
Ford Windstar
Tylenol
Phillips TV

 

[dZ]

and who is Maria (Skellator) Shiver's husband?

What does he do again?

dZ

 

[Guyon]

Yeah, dZ, that's the funny thing. Just after Maria was lambasting guns on NBC, hubby Aaarnold was on CBS (I think) destroying half of New York and shooting cops in "Eraser."

 

[Mikey]

And then, as if on cue, another disturbed student goes to school and kills his fellow students. What do they (the media) think prompts these twisted murderers to act? Could it be...perhaps...the promise of fame that these so-called "News" shows promote??

Methinks perhaps it is...

Mikey