The 90’s, episode 403: Guns And Violence

Episode 403 of the award winning series, The 90's. This episode is called "GUNS AND VIOLENCE" and features the following segments:

02:02Copy video clip URL “Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms” by Eddie Becker. Steve Higgins, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, opens up a vault that houses the most complete library of guns known to exist. Ed Owen, the chief of the Firearms Technology Branch, displays a variety of guns — from a homemade machine gun to an assassin’s brief case.

05:34Copy video clip URL “Machine Gun Extravaganza” by Kathie Robertson. Gun enthusiasts at play with the following information superimposed on the screen: ” Excluding the military and the police, there are more than 200 million weapons in the U.S.” “Approximately 70 million are handguns… The number of youths killed with firearms nearly doubled between 1984 and 1989… The majority of U.S. guns are not registered or traceable… and Americans have more handguns than hair dryers.”

06:12Copy video clip URL “Gun Man” by Garth Roger Bacon. Michael Schultz in Unity, NH, displays his extensive gun collection: “I use them to hunt, target practice. To me, they’re like toys… It’s a hobby.” When asked if there would be less killings if guns were outlawed he responds, “Hell no, it’d be so much easier, there’s always going to be people with guns. That’s a bunch of horse shit. If they took guns away from the people and the police, shit, you could kill anybody you want… What are they gonna do? Run down the road and mace you?… in the military, they tell you never to surrender your weapon.”

08:20Copy video clip URL “Weekend War Games” by Patrick Creadon. In Millington, Illinois, weekend warriors engage in combat with paint guns. One participant takes a glob of paint in the face. “You’re splooged,” says Pat. “I’m dead,” says the soldier.

09:11Copy video clip URL “Playing Guns” Jody Procter and Kit Sibert. In a forest in Eugene, Oregon, kids play with guns. When Lucas Mautino is asked if he likes to play with guns, he replies, Occasionally… I like to die.” Ian Cassidy Rondeau says, “I’m trying to get rid of my guns… I don’t like them that much. They use them to kill people.”  Lucas pumps Ian full of imaginary bullets.

10:38Copy video clip URL “L.A. Homeboys” by Nancy Cain. In Los Angeles: Ray Anthony Oropeza says, “my favorite [childhood game] was [pretending to kill] somebody, I remember that… Now it’s not a game anymore. It’s so real; it’s really deadly. It’s not even worth looking back and laughing anymore. It’s not a joke anymore.” Anthony L. Martin: “I don’t want to give up. I refuse to give up. Sometimes I sit around the house and think ‘I’m gonna die fighting’… It just breaks your heart.”

12:20Copy video clip URL “Paxton Quigley: Armed and Dangerous” by Maxi Cohen and John Axelrad. In Long Beach, California, Paxton Quigley teaches women how to shoot guns and defend themselves. She says, “Women are becoming tired of being victims. They’re saying, ‘Enough is enough.’ They’re saying, ‘I never want this to happen’ or if it has happened, they’re saying, ‘It’s never going to happen again.'” When squeezing the trigger Paxton encourages her students “to make it sexy.” At the target range, one student looks at the result of her shooting, “This guy would have been dead many times. It was fun, too.”

15:41Copy video clip URL “Spy Shop” by Skip Blumberg. A t the Quark Spy Shop in New York, Skip Blumberg videos himself being videotaped by a hidden camera in the store’s front window. Melinda Meals says that the store specializes in counter surveillance equipment. She displays a variety of discreet video and audio equipment. The clients range from people who want to check on their baby-sitter to businessmen who want to protect their ideas. One customer buys a “coyote stick” to fend off muggers. Norman Buitta, the president of the company, displays bulletproof clothes and contests that “nothing has changed all that much… The body armor has replaced the shield.” The recession has helped increase business.

22:19Copy video clip URL “Scott and Nancy” by Robbie Leppzer and Sara Elinoff / Turning Tide Productions. Scott and Nancy Girard, married for 18 years, discuss the effects of domestic violence on their lives. Scott: “We’ve been trying to survive as the American family, which is basically a pipe dream at this point.” Scott talks about how his frustration built up and Nancy relays her feelings of how Scott made her feel she was always doing the wrong thing. Scott: “I exercised my attitudes to try to control her.” Nancy on reading a book on battered women: “I read a chapter on emotional abuse. Each thing in there happened to me… Females are taught, ‘Don’t rock the boat. Don’t upset the Man.'”

28:33Copy video clip URL “Armed Women” by Nancy Cain. In a class on self defense, Sean Collinsworth demonstrates how easy an attacker can take away one’s gun. Kim Kralj relates a story on how she was attacked. Pirie Jones says, “We make the mistake of expecting the man to protect us. I needed to develop the independent side of me that says ‘I can take care of myself’.” Candace Brown says she keeps her gun in bed with her. Lynne Levin shows off her .357 Magnum. Pirie Jones says, “I had to make the commitment that if I had a gun I was going to use it… I’m the type of woman who will walk around a bug… I believe in life. But I also believe in my life.” Lynne Levin points her gun and says, “I’m prepared not to have myself killed or harmed.”

31:56Copy video clip URL “Lt. Wayne Wiberg” by Joe Cummings, Scott Jacobs and Tom Weinberg. Lt. Wayne Wiberg of the Chicago Police holds a Tech 9 and says that this gun is “the Saturday Night Special of the ’90s… You’re not going to go deer hunting with this sucker. I’m sorry, if you do you’re going to be eating a lot of bullets.”

32:32Copy video clip URL “Handgun Control” by Eddie Becker. David Weaver, a volunteer for Handgun Control, tells an answering machine about Referendum 006, which would make manufacturers of semiautomatic firearms liable for the harm they cause in Washington D.C. On the Tech 9, he says, “The maker of Tech 9 knows that his firearm is being used in crime… He continues to sell it without any regard to the consequences. Everybody but the maker of these guns pays a price.” The referendum passed.

34:45Copy video clip URL “Ed Baker” by Appalshop / Andrew Garrison. In Whitesburg, Kentucky: Ed Baker has been making custom shotguns since 1968. He says, “Guns are not to kill. They’re to entertain. If they could fight wars with their fists, it’d be fine, or other sanctions – economic sanctions. No point in taking one man’s life.”

37:36Copy video clip URL “Gun Toy” by Maxi Cohen. A toy soldier crawls on the pavement.

37:45Copy video clip URL “Scorpions” by Andrew Jones. A montage of contemporary conflicts from around the world – from the Thai / Burma border to Panama to Iraq – is accompanied by Joseph Parson’s song “Scorpions”: “When a scorpion is at your throat / You can’t wish that away / They don’t know about us / They don’t know love.”

42:00Copy video clip URL “Shoot the Geek” by Skip Blumberg. At a fair in Middletown, New York, people shoot paint balls at a guy dressed up as Saddam Hussein. A fairgoer named Tiffany explains that most women don’t like the game because it promotes violence in children. She doesn’t see any problem with it, however- “It’s for fun though. They’re only paint balls. It’s just like they do on TV. Except this is just like, real. [laughs]”

43:09Copy video clip URL More from “L.A. Homeboys.” In Los Angeles: Ray Anthony Oropeza says, “You know what? Where there’s no education, there’ s a gun right there. (Points to hip) There’s bodies laying in the streets and those people are going to bleed and they’re going to die. If you don’t care about it, you better sit down and watch this country dwindle to nothing… If you think it’s just happening in the ghetto, you’re wrong. It’s gonna sneak and creep up on you. We’re all going to lose.”

44:02Copy video clip URL “From Behind the Bench” by Kathie Robertson. In Chicago: Bertina Lampkin, Associate Judge Cook County Court, says, “Most people who come before me don’t accept responsibility for what they do. No one has instilled in them any responsibility at all. They are not taught that they have self worth. If you call a child an idiot, an asshole, or a bastard; that’s what they think they are.”

47:17Copy video clip URL “Lucian” by Skip Blumberg. The 90’s regular, Todd Alcott rants: “People die. We all have to die. Wars – people accept that. People keel over everyday. It’s no big deal. A couple of co-eds get pulped with a club, people get completely hysterical. When I was a teenager, I’d get in a car and drive some, kill some people and drive some more because that’s what I felt like doing. I realized I wasn’t worried about being wrong, I was worried about being caught. This country goes nutso for serial killers. I was in a mental institution in Mendota, Wisconsin for ten years. And for what? One family of campers and it was bullshit the way they caught me. Get this. I’m driving in this forest preserve – Lacrosse – looking for somebody to kill. I find this family of campers. You know what’s coming. I do ’em. I chop ’em up. I throw ’em in a creek. A storm comes up. Lots of evidence gets lot in storms. I’m free and clear. I’m driving out of the forest preserve and suddenly a tree blows over in the road. This forest ranger, McGann was his name, pulls me over. He asks me why I have blood all over my clothing. I tell him, ‘I’m fine, thank you, good bye.’ But the bureaucratic pawn writes down my license plate number. A week later the police show up at my door. They find me not guilty by reason of insanity. I’m not insane, but do you know what I am? I’m scary… I know why I killed all those people. Is it a mystery? Pick up a newspaper. Is this a world bent on life? I don’t think so.”

50:25Copy video clip URL “David Viscott” by Jim Mulryan. David Viscott, psychologist, says: “The media reflects and creates the image of the country… When the media gets an event that is really brutal, they love to show it… They like to be sensational and get away with it.”

51:24Copy video clip URL “Victims or Victimizers?” by Rob Scott. In Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts: A gang member talks about why he carries a gun and says that if confronted by a rival gang, “We’re going out to kill.”

52:20Copy video clip URL “Stop the Madness” by Jerome Thomas. Poetry over a slow motion funeral march: “That music was a melody of bullets flying and flesh tearing and breathing stopping and lives ending… Why does it take hundreds of young lives to make people see that only in death does there seem to be an equal opportunity?”

53:53Copy video clip URL “Helen Samuels” by Nancy Cain. Helen Samuels is a muralist in L.A. who is painting a wall to serve as a memorial for “dead homeboys.” She got involved in the project when her daughter’s best friend lost her life in a gang related shooting. On vandalism: “Although I don’t agree with vandalism, I do see it as a reaction to materialism. It’s you saying, ‘I’m still alive. I haven’t been squashed. I haven’t been squelched.'” She’s working on a project that sets aside walls for street artists. When you set aside a place for people “a beautiful chain of events ensues,” she says.

57:27Copy video clip URL End Credits

 

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