Last summer, I was contacted by a producer working with Spectrum News 1 Ohio on a mini-documentary about American gun culture. I did a long pre-interview with her, and she wanted to follow up with an on-camera interview. I told her I would be attending the National African American Gun Association’s first national convention in Atlanta at the end of July and suggested she check it out. We arranged to talk in Atlanta before the convention began.
That was July. The mini-documentary ran on Spectrum News 1 in December and this week the producer let me know.
I found the piece among the fairest treatments of American gun culture I’ve seen in a major media outlet. Certainly, they gave me more than my fair share of opportunity to speak. But most of the other experts and individuals interviewed expressed their views in thoughtful and moderate ways, and the editorial perspective represented overall was balanced.
You can certainly judge for yourself, thought. Watch the 20-minute video.
Gun Culture 2.0 
Really good video. I tend to think the advocates of “common sense” laws don’t read them very carefully.
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Lacombe expressed concern over citizens who stockpile arms with a view toward one day opposing the government. General Gage shared those concerns back in 1775.
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Thank you professor, good to see CorporateStream Media be a bit more open to hearing more of the voices of America, and acknowledging our shared history.
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Spectrum did interview representatives from both sides of the gun debate. But I find it hard to believe that no one brought up statistics showing the benefits of private gun ownership (e.g.: John Lott’s research), as you have in the past. So, as others have, this network leaves the audience anti-gun owners referencing facts while gun owners reference feelings and traditions. I don’t think that is a fair presentation of the argument.
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The psychologist, Losee, alludes disparagingly to ‘unclear’ research showing guns promote safety, but contrasts it to ‘solid’ research showing they increase risk to the owner — as the visual cuts to a citation of one of David Hemenway’s junk science papers.
All three of the anti-gun professionals imputed irrational, emotional urges for gun ownership* — a caricature belied by the calm rationality of the folks at the NAAGA convention and at the range.
* Cf. Prof. Yamane’s ‘Standard Model’
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I was surprised by Losee’s claim that dislike of Chinese people was the #2 motivator for pandemic gun purchases. Turns out, she co-wrote a paper on her own research into the matter. It’s based on a hefty portion of ‘may have’ assumptions; e.g., “China was the source of the COVID-19 pandemic and top officials in the U.S. government used narratives that closely linked Chinese people to the virus. Consequently, some Americans may have come to view Chinese Americans as a symbolic or realistic threat.” The statistical analysis consisted of “feelings thermometer” readings toward Chinese people, with 30 pandemic gun buyers at 3.37 ‘warmth’ vs. 3.70 by 913 non-gun owners.* This was described as “significant.”
Losee also linked pandemic gun purchasing to a greater likelihood to “endorse conspiracy theories” — perhaps one of those being that the virus escaped from a lab?
* Losee, et al., measured a similar warmth disparity for Italians — making my own purchase of a Beretta during the pandemic an anomaly.
Click to access 2022-22091-001.pdf
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