Viewing Alert: John Stossel Report on "Packing in America"

[Bigum1969]

I just saw a teaser ad for a special report on "Packing (guns) in America" on the John Stossel show this Thursday evening on the Fox Business Channel.

I'm not sure what time it comes on the first time, but the Stossel show comes on for sure at 11 p.m. each night here in Evansville.

Should be an interesting show...

 

[downzero]

I love John Stossel. He's the only mainstream libertarian I know.

 

[Squib]

He's been known to get some stuff wrong. As to wether it's his slant or simply faulty research, it still has the cache of being "correct". Keep your fingers crossed; it can go either way.

 

[The Keymaster]

Here is the lead for it.

Stossel | FOXBusiness.com

 

[jsx1043]

Is it a new report? I seem to remember a previous one that he did that I thought was going to be very negative but turned out fairly decent and leaned towards a common sense approach.

 

[SSGSAD]

I already have my DVR set... If the teaser, isn't a teaser, it looks
like, he has it right...

 

[The Keymaster]

Thursday at 11:00 pm CDT on channel 359 for you Directv people. I just set it from my computer.

 

[millsusaf]

I'll be looking for it on youtube. Can't wait, I've always liked Stossel.

 

[HandK]

We need more reporters like him, that will go out look at the facts and form there own opinion based on those facts, instead of just reading the copy handed to them!!

 

[Prometheus]

Stossel has had the "more guns less crime" guy on several times (from 20/20 to his weekly show) and has always been very agreeable to an armed citizenry.

Chances are this will be pro-gun. I'll be looking forward to it.

 

[Scarnucci]

He is soliciting questions and comments on his facebook site:

Welcome to Facebook


John Stossel

Post your questions here for my "More Guns, Less Crime" show guests: Dennis Hennigan of the pro-gun control Brady Campaign; John Lott, author of “More Guns, Less Crime,” and Alan Gura, defense attorney for Otis McDonald's supreme court challenge of the Chicago gun ban. Send your questions here and I might use them in the show!16 hours ago

 

[schafe]

Stossel has had the "more guns less crime" guy on several times (from 20/20 to his weekly show) and has always been very agreeable to an armed citizenry.

Chances are this will be pro-gun. I'll be looking forward to it.

Stossel is actually a convert to the pro-gun way of thinking. I saw that in his column on World Net Daily just today.

 

[Srtsi4wd]

Stossel is actually a convert to the pro-gun way of thinking. I saw that in his column on World Net Daily just today.

[FONT=Palatino, Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=+2]Guns save lives[/SIZE][/FONT]

[SIZE=-1]Posted: June 23, 2010
1:00 am Eastern

[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]© 2010 [/SIZE]

You know what the mainstream media think about guns and our freedom to carry them.
Pierre Thomas of ABC: "When someone gets angry or when they snap, they are going to be able to have access to weapons."
Chris Matthews of MSNBC: "I wonder if in a free society violence is always going to be a part of it if guns are available."
Keith Olbermann, who usually can't be topped for absurdity: "Organizations like the NRA ... are trying to increase deaths by gun in this country."
"Trying to?" Well, I admit that I bought that nonsense for years. Living in Manhattan, working at ABC, everyone agreed that guns are evil. And that the NRA is evil. (Now that the NRA has agreed to a sleazy deal with congressional Democrats on political speech censorship, maybe some of its leaders are evil, but that's for another column.)
Now I know that I was totally wrong about guns. Now I know that more guns means – hold onto your seat – less crime.

How can that be, when guns kill almost 30,000 Americans a year? Because while we hear about the murders and accidents, we don't often hear about the crimes stopped because would-be victims showed a gun and scared criminals away. Those thwarted crimes and lives saved usually aren't reported to police (sometimes for fear the gun will be confiscated), and when they are reported, the media tend to ignore them. No bang, no news.
This state of affairs produces a distorted public impression of guns. If you only hear about the crimes and accidents, and never about lives saved, you might think gun ownership is folly.
But, hey, if guns save lives, it logically follows that gun laws cost lives.
Suzanna Hupp and her parents were having lunch at Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, when a man began shooting diners with his handgun, even stopping to reload. Suzanna's parents were two of the 23 people killed. (Twenty more were wounded.)
Suzanna owned a handgun, but because Texas law at the time did not permit her to carry it with her, she left it in her car. She's confident that she could have stopped the shooting spree if she had her gun. (Texas has since changed its law.)
Today, 40 states issue permits to competent, law-abiding adults to carry concealed handguns (Vermont and Alaska have the most libertarian approach: no permit needed. Arizona is about to join that exclusive club.) Every time a carry law was debated, anti-gun activists predicted outbreaks of gun violence after fender-benders, card games and domestic quarrels.
What happened?
John Lott, in "More Guns, Less Crime," explains that crime fell by 10 percent in the year after the laws were passed. A reason for the drop in crime may have been that criminals suddenly worried that their next victim might be armed. Indeed, criminals in states with high civilian gun ownership were the most worried about encountering armed victims.
In Canada and Britain, both with tough gun-control laws, almost half of all burglaries occur when residents are home. But in the United States, where many households contain guns, only 13 percent of burglaries happen when someone's at home.
Two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in the Heller case that Washington, D.C.'s ban on handgun ownership was unconstitutional. District politicians then loosened the law but still have so many restrictions that there are no gun shops in the city and just 800 people have received permits. Nevertheless, contrary to the mayor's prediction, robbery and other violent crime are down.
Because Heller applied only to Washington, that case was not the big one. McDonald v. Chicago is the big one, and the Supreme Court is expected to rule on that next week. Otis McDonald is a 76-year-old man who lives in a dangerous neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. He wants to buy a handgun, but Chicago forbids it.
If the Supremes say McDonald has that right, then restrictive gun laws will fall throughout America.
Despite my earlier bias, I now understand that striking down those laws will probably save lives.



Looking good! I'll be watching.

 

[SSGSAD]

Does anyone remember the outcry from the libs, when Fl. was about to enact their 'permit' to carry... Everyone said there would be blood in the streets... I am old enough to remember Morton Grove, they banned guns,
and Kennesaw Ga. required everyone to have a gun... care to guess,
where the crime INCREASED... Morton Grove... Look at the 'most dangerous' cities... dare I name them... the ones with the most restrictive gun laws, crime goes up....

 

[downzero]

The "More guns, less crime" hypothesis has been beat to death. It is far from clear that lawful firearm ownership actually reduces crime. There is plenty of research on the topic, some of it even in prominent journals. I remain unconvinced that CCW has any statistically significant effect on crime reduction.

I carry a gun every day and you'll never see me without one, but despite what I believe about firearms and their effectiveness, the data are far from clear that concealed carry reduces crime.

I have my doubts because so few carry and criminals know this. For there to be any sort of effective deterrence, there'd have to be far more people carrying, and there just isn't.

 

[ATM]

...It is far from clear that lawful firearm ownership actually reduces crime. There is plenty of research on the topic, some of it even in prominent journals. I remain unconvinced that CCW has any statistically significant effect on crime reduction.

Statistics aren't exhaustively conclusive in proving corelations and can be manipulated for effect

...but the opposing claim, that loosening restrictions would increase crime, has been completely dismissed by everyone who can clearly see the trend going the other way.

There is at least some undeniable truth to be gleaned from the research.

 

[downzero]

Statistics aren't exhaustively conclusive in proving corelations and can be manipulated for effect

...but the opposing claim, that loosening restrictions would increase crime, has been completely dismissed by everyone who can clearly see the trend going the other way.

There is at least some undeniable truth to be gleaned from the research.

I am quite aware of the limits and capabilities of statistics. I have a degree in economics.

One thing is for certain: there's no such thing as "undeniable truth" in any scientific research.

 

[ATM]

I am quite aware of the limits and capabilities of statistics. I have a degree in economics.

One thing is for certain: there's no such thing as "undeniable truth" in any scientific research.

Perhaps "undeniable truth" was too much. Reflects a bit of bias on my part.

How about "incontrovertible facts"?

 

[SmileDocHill]

Stossel did a great piece on "greed" MANY years ago too.

 

[HICKMAN]

I love John Stossel. He's the only mainstream libertarian I know.

Never heard of ?

Glenn Beck
Frank Zappa
Drew Carey
Howard Stern
Dennis Leary
Kurt Russel

Libertarians are appealing to me more and more these days.