From: [b--si--i] at [stein1.u.washington.edu] (David Basiji)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Oprah on Guns
Date: 23 Oct 1993 18:22:52 GMT

I was home sick yesterday and managed to catch the Oprah Winfrey
show. The subject was: "Guns...are they the cause of crime or the
cure?"

Given that Oprah is personally anti-gun, the show was remarkably
well-balanced in many ways.

It started with Oprah in a Chicago gun store interviewing a clerk.
She admitted that she'd never been in a gun store before and asked
the clerk various questions about where criminals get their guns from
and who buys them. The clerk was in no way the stereotypical fat slob
they usually choose to interview. He was black, well-groomed, very
well-spoken, and quick on his feet. He mentioned that the police
cannot protect you from crime; it's your responsibility to protect yourself
and that very few guns used in crimes are purchased legally. 

The studio audience was about 50/50 pro and anti-gun. In the audience
were a mother and daughter who lived together and had considered getting
a gun. They decided to take a gun-safety course together to help them
make their decision. They showed some footage of them at the camp
learning to shoot. They still hadn't bought a gun because the mother
hadn't decided that she could take a life, if pressed. The daughter
seemed to enjoy shooting and said she wouldn't have a problem using a
gun against an attacker.

On stage was a woman who had used a gun her father had given her 15 minutes
earlier to defend herself against a man who held a gun to her head and
said, "I'm gonna kill you, bitch." She pulled her gun on the guy and held
it to his head at the same time. He dropped his gun and fled. She took 
his gun and reported him to the police. He was aprehended and had attacked
someone else that morning as well as raping a 12 year old the day before.
He stole the gun from his father.

At this point, it turned into an audience free-for-all with both sides
hysterically making their points. A pro-gun woman stated that the Brady
Bill did not require a background check, which was denied by the anti's.
Finally, a man stood up who ran gun-safety seminars. He said that the
only thing that everyone seemed to agree on was the need for training
among the gun-owning public but that training costs money and the poor
don't have money so how would we deal with that?

Before a few of the commercial breaks, they cut to an HCI rep and an
NRA rep who each made 10 second comments. The HCI man presented the
"facts" as he saw them and the NRA woman tried to refute them. She was
very wooden and not an effective speaker. Oprah herself mentioned the
43:1 statistic and cut to a video comparison of annual gun deaths for
Japan, Canada, USA, and a few others, complete with an ambulance and 
stretcher in the background. This video appeared twice during the show.
No mention was made or comparison drawn between pre- and post-
gun control murder rates.

David Basiji
UW Bioengineering