MSNBC Al Roker Reporting, on guns, tonight 11/23

[Revet]

MSNBC's "Al Roker Reporting" is doing a show tonight, 11/23 at 9PM & 12AM titled: Armed in America.

They just broadcast the hour-long preview and it's clear it will be the usual "guns-are-evil" hit job.

[Lodge2004]

Just a little priming of the pump. It will be a LONG four years. I suspect hollywood and the media are running on overtime preparing TV shows and movies to show all the evil things we must eliminate in order to have "change" in this country

[seamusTX]

MSNBC gets 3% of the audience on a good day, and most of the people who watch it are just looking for confirmation of their opinions.

If you asked me out of the blue who Al Roker is, I wouldn't have a clue.

The problem is when this propaganda shows up on Sixty Minutes and other widely watched programs, and works its way into the broadcast network news. That's what millions of people watch and consider authoritative.

- Jim

[bridge]

They've been advertising it all week long on the Today show...which has the majority stake with respect to morning news shows. I'm curious why they have the weather man doing a segment on guns. I'm sure they will follow-up with segments/snippets during the Today show all this week. If I recall correctly one of the stats they gave on this mornings Weekend Today show was that 10% of all violent crime is gun related. From what I saw on the previews it looks like ATF folks speaking out against high caliber rifles. Aren't ATF personnel civil servants?

[seamusTX]

Nearly all civilian federal employees are civil servants. That doesn't stop them from expressing policy views. I guess they have a right to free speech like everyone else.

- Jim

[Rugrash]

I just watched all the video clips. It's not bad from what I saw. The first clip is with ATF agents going on a morning raid on gangs (much like watching Dallas SWAT or COPS). The others are with an ATF agent talking about AK's, M-16/AR-15's etc as well as very strange firearms like a belt buckle gun, pen gun, lighter, pager etc. He was explaining the difference b/t full-auto being prohibitively expensive and regular semi-auto variants. I doubt it will be like the 20/20 John Stossell report a few years ago which was more positive.

Goto MSNBC TV on the left and choose DOCUMENTARIES
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp ... 4#27848746" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[bridge]

Nearly all civilian federal employees are civil servants. That doesn't stop them from expressing policy views. I guess they have a right to free speech like everyone else.

- Jim

No doubt, free speech and all. It just seems odd that someone who works at the behest of federal policy would go on TV speaking out against it (just an assumption right now, I haven't seen the show, yet). Its one thing to preface anything you say with "my opinions are my own and not the opinions of Federal Agency XYZ". Its another thing to go on TV as a steward of that agency. I work for NASA (albeit a lowly, bottom feeding contractor) and if I were to go on TV talking about space program policy I'd be severely punished or just out right fired.

[Revet]

It's odd that an hour-long program would have an hour-long promotional preview. But this one does. If you read this on time, the preview will be replayed at 4PM. The actual "report" will be premiered at 9PM and 12AM.

The preview was far from positive in my opinion. The mention of lawful uses and ownership of firearms was brief and perfunctory. The rest of the program was bloody with particular emphasis on "assault" and .50 caliber rifles.

[tarkus]

They just broadcast the hour-long preview and it's clear it will be the usual "guns-are-evil" hit job.

You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows

[seamusTX]

No doubt, free speech and all. It just seems odd that someone who works at the behest of federal policy would go on TV speaking out against it ...

Probably there are Supreme Court decisions in this area. It's just not something that I'm very interested in.

Trying not get too far off-topic, I have been disappointed in the way that BATFE has continued some of their shenanigans the past eight years. A BATFE reform bill was passed, but it does not seem to have made much difference.

Their job should be to apprehend truly dangerous criminals, not make criminals out of people who don't understand every nuance of the law. If they don't get that, there was an opportunity to have it made clear to them. That opportunity is gone.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

On the topic of the weatherman doing a program on firearms ... everyone that you see on TV who works for the network is an actor. They are working from scripts. They may care about what they are saying, or they may just be punching the clock to take home a paycheck.

Very few of them get to write their own scripts.

We used to have a forum member who worked for one of the networks. It's too bad he quit posting, because he probably could have explained this better than I can.

- Jim

[flintknapper]

I will make a wild "prediction" here...and say that you can expect about 55 minutes of portraying firearms in a bad light (I.E. criminal use). Constantly making this "link" between guns and crime and never showing a positive/useful aspect of them will eventually have the effect they want: Engender the thought in peoples minds that guns= bad!

[stevie_d_64]

Why am I not surprised by any of this...

[nitrogen]

TiVo ENGAGED...

[pbwalker]

I will make a wild "prediction" here...and say that you can expect about 55 minutes of portraying firearms in a bad light (I.E. criminal use). Constantly making this "link" between guns and crime and never showing a positive/useful aspect of them will eventually have the effect they want: Engender the thought in peoples minds that guns= bad!

So far, you're spot on!

Best line so far was "Glock's are popular with the police as well as criminals"

[flintknapper]

I will make a wild "prediction" here...and say that you can expect about 55 minutes of portraying firearms in a bad light (I.E. criminal use). Constantly making this "link" between guns and crime and never showing a positive/useful aspect of them will eventually have the effect they want: Engender the thought in peoples minds that guns= bad!

So far, you're spot on!

Best line so far was "Glock's are popular with the police as well as criminals"

Flintknapper wrote:

I will make a wild "prediction" here...and say that you can expect about 55 minutes of portraying firearms in a bad light (I.E. criminal use). Constantly making this "link" between guns and crime and never showing a positive/useful aspect of them will eventually have the effect they want: Engender the thought in peoples minds that guns= bad!

Well….I was off slightly. Turns out it was actually 59 minutes!

The “undercover” example of a “straw purchase” was pretty lame/weak IMO, it was never established that the lady intended to fill out the 4473 as anyone but the "buyer".

The first question on a form 4473 is “I am the buyer of this firearm” and the purchaser must answer honestly yes or no in ink, in his or her own handwriting.

I can easily see a situation where a more knowledgeable person simply went along with someone to advise and supervise a gun purchase. In other words, the man/other person may have been asking questions of the retailer but the firearm (all along) was intended for the woman.

That would NOT be a “straw purchase” as long as SHE filled out the form with intent of being the purchaser of the weapon.

I think the examples in this case were very poorly presented…and were prefaced by some person claiming that the illegal purchase of a gun was as easy as “a teenager buying beer”.

As expected, the whole thing was very one sided and calculated to demonize firearms in general.

All this under the heading “Armed in America”. Funny they didn’t show a single frame of anyone using a firearm for legal, sporting, recreational purposes. Isn’t that also “armed”?

Pure trash, but hey…its MSNBC, I’d have been disappointed to see anything less.

A more fitting title would have been "Criminals in America".