This episode is not journalism, but, rather, very, *very* thinly- disguised anti-firearms propaganda that aims to show that civilians cannot defend themselves with firearms. Diane Sawyer herself doesn't even really pretend to be neutral. (At one point, for example, she's in a kind of simulator police use for training, and she ostentatiously fumbles for her simulated sidearm, not even really trying to get it out of the holster.) The lowlight of the episode, however, is an experiment--perhaps the worst experiment every devised by man. It is nominally supposed to show that firearms absolutely cannot help an untrained person protect himself no matter what so don't even try... Instead, what it proves, if anything, is that if (i) you have absolutely no firearms training and (ii) a police firearms instructor wants to kill you and (iii) you don't know he's coming, and (iv) he knows that you are armed and (v) knows exactly where you are sitting in a crowded room, then (vi) you're screwed. Hardly an astonishing result... In fact what 20/20 seems dedicated to convincing their audience of is this: if you are attacked by a killer, and you have a gun, you are better off throwing it away than trying to use it to defend yourself and others. This actually may be the single most intellectually dishonest hour of television I've ever seen. It's almost worth watching just in order to marvel at the thing as a piece of shameless propaganda masquerading as journalism.
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