by Diane Sawyer and David Muir will have a special edition of ABC News’ 20/20 tomorrow night. The special is entitled Young Guns: A Diane Sawyer Special and will be, from everything I have seen, a hit piece on firearms. It is officially supposed about kids and guns as well as parental responsibility.
Before you watch this “report”, I’d suggest you do two things. First, you should read David Codrea’s column published today. As David reports, based upon one of their teaser episodes, Diane Sawyer and ABC News are attempting to cast doubt on the NRA’s Eddie Eagle child gun safety program. In the set-up that they use to do so, they may be in violation of Florida Statute 790.174 which specifies requirements for the safe storage of firearms when there are minors present. Of course, they probably won’t be charged with anything for this violation of Florida law.
The second thing I would suggest you do is to two interviews with an Armed Citizens Project participant from Texas named Amanda. She is a single mom with a special needs child. As she details on Episode 80 of the The Squirrel Report podcast (13:50-53:00), she and a number of other women who participate in the Armed Citizens Project were interviewed by ABC producers as well as David Muir. She reports that the ABC producers were disappointed in the answers that she and the other moms gave. She fully expected for much of what they said to be left on the cutting floor.
Amanda reported back in Episode 82 of The Squirrel Report podcast (39:40-51:00) that the ABC producers had contacted her to say that the group interview was being cut. They did invite Amanda and her son to be filmed in an individual segment. Amanda said she was willing to appear but not with her son. From her conversations with the other Armed Citizen Project mothers, they, too, had been approached.
So if you do watch the 20/20 Special, just remember that a lot was left on the cutting floor during editing. Moreover, remember it was filmed by people who had no hesitation at encouraging little kids to violate Col. Cooper’s Rule No. 1 – All guns are always loaded.
