On the walk home tonight I caught the second half of a radio show called World Have Your Say, broadcast by the BBC World Service.
It is a forum where the producers pick the subject from around the world that seems to have had the most traffic on social media. I don't know what the news item or event was, but the show was being broadcast from a gun-shop in Austin, Texas. They were discussing US gun politics, Concealed Carry Licence trends, and the potential role of the armed citizen.
Part of the formula of the programme is they get either experts in the given field or willing members of the public with a vested interest to talk, discuss and answer questions, live on air.
The programme allows for anyone to call in, text, tweet or leave a Facebook message if they have a comment or question for the guests.
Not all get answered in an hour, but there is usually a good spread. I wrote in, but my message didn't get picked I'm afraid...
The shop owner and host gave an over-view of his role as a gun-shop owner and "FFL" (correct?) dealer and guests had a chance to introduce themselves and give some background to their views, including whether or not they carried routinely.
True to the BBC practice, they had representatives from both sides of the debate, to give equal opportunity for an balanced discussion.
The link to the programme which should now be online to listen to through the web is
HERE.
It was only an hour or so ago, but is already online.
There were a couple of issues that caught my attention that I thought might be of interest to TFL members:
Firstly, I noted one of the supporters of full background checks touted the "90% of Americans support universal background checks" statistic that I seem to recall TFL members have claimed is false: if that is the case, it still seems to carry weight with some.
Secondly, and more surprisingly, was a comment by the gun owner that I caught halfway through that made me stop in my tracks: I don't know if TFL members are aware of.
If I understood correctly, the shop owner said that if a customer comes in to buy two guns at the same time of certain types (one I think was the semi-auto rifle type but I can't remember the second type to trip this "alarm"), then the gun shop owner would call the FBI and, without the customer's knowledge, tell them the customer's name, as well as the serial numbers of the guns in question.
This seems odd, unless it is the shop owner's own practice as part of being conscientious...
Interestingly, no one mentioned, as far as I heard, the 2nd A'ment in terms of "defence against tyranny". It was all about SD.
Have a listen if you think you might be interested.
By the way, I am just putting this here for people's interest, not to start some sort of slagging match: whatever the views might be, let's be nice!!