20/20 If I Had A Gun POST-REVIEW of show

[fireman1328]

Did anyone send ABC an email? On another forum that I go to, someone posted address for ABC.They also posted all the advertisers of the show. One gentleman on the site wrote a very well thought out review to send to the head of ABC as well as his hometown newspaper. I can post this information here if anyone wants it.

Fire

 

[fireman1328]

Here is the reponse to the show as written by a gentleman in west VA. Its a long read, but very well written, and Chris stated that anyone could copy it if they wanted to.

Dear ABC,

I'm writing this in response to your 20/20 Investigates special entitled "If I Only Had A Gun."

As I did not watch the original airing, I am watching each segment as it is posted on your website. My comments are going to be chronicled accordingly.

First, I am going to address the "student vs. gunman" segment.
In each instance, your chosen students were set up to fail. I say this because on every attempt, your student was seated in the exact same spot, thus giving your staged scenario a slant toward the "shooter". This gave the "shooter" instructor the advantage knowing that his intended target was going to be placed in the same spot every time. You've already put them at a disadvantage. Next, you put them all in over sized baggy tee shirts. While that may be a style that many wear, those chosen may not wear clothing like that. You've hampered their reaction timing again as evidenced by the first students defensive firearm becoming snagged in that over sized shirt. While for purposes of demonstration, legal and insurance coverage, I can see why the use of the safety helmet and gloves were used, but, again, you have put your example students at a disadvantage. You have asked these students to demonstrate a reactive maneuver while wearing safety gear with which they were not trained nor instructed on how to compensate. This meaning that the visor may have fogged impairing their vision, the gloves - while not worn during a normal class scenario - reduced their sense of touch, and, in some cases may have been too large for their hands. Having worked in the auto parts sales industry, I can attest to the fact that the "Mechanix" brand gloves you used do not comfortably fit everyone. Regardless of the safety equipment used, unless they received instruction on those items while they were being trained on firearm usage that you did not air, you hampered their reaction time and ability for a third time. On this point, I'm going to reference your fourth student - Chris. You claim that he froze, but watching the video it is easy to see he is struggling against the clothing and safety equipment you required him to wear.
Another thing I want to point out at this time is the equipment chosen for your demonstration purposes. While the firearm you chose may be a a good firearm - and many have chosen such for their personal defense - the decision of a firearm is extremely personal. While many choose a full size, in this case Glock was your firearm of choice, to purchase and use, it is not the best hand fit for everyone. This is why instructors tell their students to find the firearm that suits them best. A person with smaller hands may feel more comfortable with a Sig Sauer 232, a Walther PPK, or even a smaller revolver like the Taurus 85. Conversely, a person with large hands would feel more comfortable with a larger sized firearm like the Glock 21, M1911A1, or S&W 686. I won't say that your students were put at a disadvantage on this for several reasons, but I would like you to understand that each person who chooses to purchase and carry a defensive firearm will have considered many different manufacturers, calibers, and styles before finding the one that best suits them. If your students could have had a choice, you will have found that their responses would have been measurably affected. Other factors such as holster type and gun placement also are important factors, but I'll not delve into them at this time.

Next on your website is the segment called "When Older kids Find Guns."

On this segment, my comment is this: While each of the stories presented are tragic, it all falls to a lack of education.

The proper handling of any instrument should be taught thoroughly to children. When children reach that age that parents enroll them in little league baseball, they are taught fervently on proper batting stance, how to hold the bat, swing follow through and the like. The same should be done with firearms. Children should be educated on proper use and safe handling of firearms from a similar age. Why so young? you may be asking. Let me explain it this way: If you have never played sports (i.e.: basketball, football, baseball etc.) you will always be mystified about playing. You'll fantasize about being a part of the team. If you've never been flying, you'll always wonder what it feels like at 10,000 feet, traveling through the air like a soaring eagle. If you've never been around firearms, you'll always be mixed with fear and fascination about them. By introducing a child to the proper uses and safety of firearms, you demystify them. You impart a proper and healthy respect for them. You show them for what they are: a conglomeration of parts assembled to create an in animate tool utilized for a specific purpose. You don't use a gun as a hammer, nor do you use a hammer to hunt your meals.
Before you counter with "a gun is only meant to kill", allow me to say that a hammer is only meant to build, a baseball bat is only meant to hit baseballs, and a car is only meant for transportation. But how often do we see and hear about these things used in a manner not conducive for which they were "meant?"
Each of the tragic stories you highlighted could have been avoided with proper education and practices.
In the scenario where you "hired" the young adults to pack the home owners possessions, had they been properly educated as my argument contends, you would have seen very different results.

Segment 3 entitled "Damon Weaver's Plea to Obama" is what I'd like to address now.

Young Mr. Weaver has a very legitimate concern and I applaud his approach to addressing it. However, this was a very unveiled attempt by your reporting at asking for more gun control. Now, while I truly feel for those who are in a situation like his (being surrounded by violence), the adoption of new, or reinstatement of, gun control measures is not the solution. What would benefit most in this situation is the prosecution of the person, not the object, involved. Objects like a gun, a car, or even a stick of wood do nothing. They are only objects and not inherently dangerous. It is the manner in which they are employed by a person that make them dangerous. The manner of use is what makes the person, and the act, criminal. Do we ban or outlaw the ownership of the Ford Bronco because a former NFL star used it committing a criminal act? No. The removal of the criminal element is what is called for. You had one man confess on air that he used children to commit a felony. Are you going to give the authorities that confession so he may be prosecuted? That would would be a step in removing at least one threat to young Mr. Weaver and his family.

Law abiding citizens do not break the law. Criminals do. Enacting gun control laws only affects the law abiding. Even if the total destruction of every firearm could be achieved, the criminal element would always find an alternative use for other tools like baseball bats, crowbars, knives etc. Remove the criminals to solve the crime problem.

Young Mr. Weaver has a wonderful future ahead of him. I do hope he works hard to accomplish his dreams.

On to your segment entitled "10 guns in One Hour".

Wow did you just put on a good show. While I mourn for those who were affected by the tragedy at VA Tech, I am amazed at how you still inappropriately report on things. Using buzz words like "assault rifle" and "gun show loophole" shows your ignorance of terminology and law.

First: "Assault rifle"

There is no such thing as an "assault rifle." There are firearms that are suited for different tasks, this is true. Simply cosmetically looking a certain way does not an "assault rifle" make. The M-16 look alike is called an AR-15. Though it is cosmetically stylized to look like the M-16, it functions differently. The M-16 is a fully automatic firearm used by military and police forces. Fully Automatic means when a person pulls on the trigger, the gun continuously loads and fires each subsequent round until either the person releases the trigger or all ammunition is expended. The AR-15 is a semi automatic firearm meaning that when the trigger is pulled only one round is fired. The following round will not be fired until the trigger is released and the firing pin reset. The mislabeling of any firearm as an "assault" weapon is akin to stereotyping people as criminal or stupid because of their ethnic background. Any object used to assault someone is now a weapon. If a person walks into a sporting goods store and starts throwing baseballs at the other patrons with force enough to crack a persons skull, that baseball has now become a weapon. Would it then be appropriate to label all baseballs as "assault baseballs?" Do you see the fallacies you are propagating by using incorrect terminology?

Second: "Gun show loophole"

Again, this buzz word addresses something that does not exist. A loop hole refers to a clause, either stated, implied or omitted, from a legal contract or law.

A person can sell their possessions as they see fit. This is called free trade. I give you 10 tomatoes, you give me $10. You trade your possession for my possession. Is there a "vegetable loophole" if I were to sell you my 10 tomatoes in the parking lot of a grocery store? No. Is it against the law for me to sell you my 10 tomatoes in that parking lot? No. Do I need to have a license issued to me by the FDA, register my vehicle as a "mobile vegetable vendor", and have the capabilities to run a credit and background check on you because you want to by my 10 tomatoes? No. Have you caught the fallacy yet or should I continue?

Now, while I have thus far refrained from allowing myself to use an emotional response, I do have to ask: what was the point of singling out the father pushing his child in a stroller? What made you feel that was something of such profound significance that you deemed it so necessary to highlight it? Did anyone ask him why he had his child with him? Was his wife at work and no babysitter available? Was he a single dad? Obviously you thought it was bad form on his part to show him in attendance, but if he were so bad, did you report this father to the authorities for child endangerment? You may think these questions to be asinine, but you obviously felt that showing this father and his child was important enough to highlight that particular piece of footage as if to say, "Look how bad this dad is by endangering his child at a gun show. Shame on him for being irresponsible."

To address and ask about the set up with Omar. While I sympathize with him over the loss of his sister, if I followed everything correctly, did you not just openly set him and yourselves up to commit a felony? It is my understanding that the way you attempted to showcase this "loophole", you also put both active parties in the position of making a "straw" purchase. If any of those firearms were purchased through a federally licensed firearms dealer at that show, simply giving Omar that $5000 in cash and telling him to buy whatever he could then giving it to you qualifies as a "straw" purchase and, therefore, a federal felony. The ATF agent accompanying you should have advised you of that. Please act responsibly by not breaking any laws in order to point out that a law can be broken.


On the segment entitled "Shooting Under Fire"

Once again I am going to point out that your "gunman" had the upper hand by knowing that each student was seated in the same place. I know that your focus was to show the reactions of your students, but it still was unbalanced in the fact that the "gunman" had his script of: walk in, shoot professor, shoot student at center of front row. Your "gunman" knew from where his resistance was coming and acted accordingly. In a real situation, no "gunman" will know if or from where to expect resistance or retaliation. To have made it more balanced, your students should have been placed randomly and your "gunman" not informed.

Another point I'd like to address with this scenario is the fact that both student and instructor knew that this was just a training exercise which is why your student, Ashley, and the instructor could have their "classroom showdown" duel. That again was evidenced when your student, Jason, was confronted by two attackers. While he was expecting a "gunman" to burst through the door, your second "gunman" knew where your student was placed, hence Jason's being shot twice in the side. Also, with Ashley, you could see that she did wait long enough for her "classmate" to clear her line of fire before she put her finger on the trigger.

When actually confronted by opposition, most people would flee. The reason the people who enacted these horrific crimes could act so boldly is they knew in advance that they would not face equal opposition. They knew that no one was going to shoot back at them. They knew that their future victims were defenseless. How different would the outcomes of each of these tragic events have been if there was but even one person who could have equally opposed them? A question we will never know the answer to because those involved were not permitted to have such a defensive measure.


In closing,

I grew up watching 20/20. I marveled at the depth and resources put into so many investigations reported on your show by legends like Hugh Downs, Barbara Walters, John Stossel and Diane Sawyer. There were many instances where your show educated me on a myriad of subjects. This episode, however, broke the balloon of wonder and illusion your show created in me those many years ago. Though I was relieved to see that the reporting wasn't peppered by one sided polls and facts from biased sources, I cannot ignore the blatant one sided set up of each segment.
I hope that my breakdown of each segment illustrates for you how glazing over a topic, purposely engineering a scenario to support a set "finding" (referencing the student reaction portion), and using emotional stories in place of addressing the actual problems is irresponsible, inaccurate, and reprehensible. For clarification: the rigging of the classroom scenario (from my point of view - the over sized shirts, safety equipment - though for legal purposes on your end that was understandable - and the placement of your students) to show how bad an idea it could be if students could defend themselves was irresponsible reporting; the using of incorrect terminology ("assault rifle") and the lack of using alternate sources (the NRA is not the only firearms organization) was inaccurate reporting; and using a 10 year old boys situation living in a crime ridden area, attempting to shine a spotlight on a non existent "loophole" condemning free trade between private citizens, highlighting a father spending the day with his infant child, and capitalizing on a victim of the VA Tech shooting setting him up to possibly commit a felony on national television was reprehensible.

My question for you is: How are you going to correct this? Are you going to have a showcase where a person made a positive difference in a shooting situation by being armed themselves? Are you going to apologize to that father for implying he was endangering his child simply for attending a gun show? Are you going to turn the taped confession to the authorities of the man who admitted to illegally purchasing a firearm by using children? Or was this entire "investigative" episode aimed at the premise "Guns are bad. We need more gun control."?

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter.

Sincerely,

 

[jedi]

Good post Fire and good reply by the person who is sending that but too late. The 'damage' has been done by that report. So no amount of writing is going to change it/ Even if you get another 20/20 report that would do a point by point counter argument on this show it's still too late since not everyone that saw the original would watch the next one either by choice or due to other things. As such the lie will spread unchecked. It's like AIDS. Once it starts there is only one way to stop it. DEATH of the human host.

 

[bouncerclub]

Seems they are convienetly also assuming in a class of 30 if they allowed guns that only one person would be armed. How would that situation have played out if there had been all of them in there at a time and spread out. The solution isn't a few people having guns IMO its having an armed society. Seems to me youd have less shootings or robberies when you are aware that 40-70 percent of people are armed.

An armed society is a polite society.

 

[jedi]

Bouncerclub 100% agree with you. Anarmed society is a politie society becuase nobody would be stupid enough to try to go out in a blaze of glory since they would get gun down. Hum... is that why we don't hear about massacres at gun ranges? After all you have a lot of those evil guns FIRING in a range,