Some of you may remember when NBC's Dateline reported on General Motors trucks "blowing up" in a wreck. Dateline showed footage of their test. It was later found that they had planted explosives in the trucks. All this to prove the conclusion that the trucks were unsafe.
Now ABC has come up with another test. Taking a hard line against our rights to bear arms, 20/20 claims that an armed citizen would be ineffective against a mass killers armed attack. Not only are they implying that we should not have rights to own firearms, they are claiming that we are too incompetent to protect ourselves.
Here is the set up:
They take college student and teach them how to fire a gun. They take each student and place them in the front-center chair of a simulated class room with other students and a teacher.
At some point a professional police instructor barges into the room and fires once at the teacher then at the front-center student.
If the student is able to get his gun out from his holster and from under his shirt and make a direct kill shot... the student wins.
If the professional gunman can get in both hits whether they are kills or not... mass murderer wins.
Of course there was no training on HOW to carry the weapon. Ill fitting holsters under baggy clothing does not fare well in a showdown.
Even as one student gets a hit, we are told that the shot to the leg was ineffective and the perpetrator was able to deliver a deadly shot to the chest. Sure! if it is just a damn paint gun. Let me take a whack with my .44 and see if he can still get a shot off after a little leg wound.
They really try to pass this off as a real world experiment. If one of the students were armed in this scenario, the armed student would not always be sitting in the front center of the class and the assailant would not know where his target would be. Although the attacker may be skilled, anyone that had experience in carrying a personal protection firearm would have, at some point, practiced and know the best way to have his weapon accessible.
Even after one girl fought it out and hit the intruder in the shoulder, it was pointed out that she came "within inches of hitting her fellow students." No mention that she had just stopped a crazed killer. All of the commentary seemed biased in every test. But then, they were out to "prove" that a professional gunman was no match for an untrained college student.
In April, a CNN poll showed that only 39% of the people surveyed wanted stricter laws - down from 50% in 2000.
And a poll sponsored by no less than ABC news found that 61% favored strong enforcement of existing laws vs 27% who want stricter laws.
