The 30-Year-Old Solution

Of all of the suggestions of gun control and school safety to emerge from last month’s tragic shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, none struck me as more ridiculous than the National Rifle Association's (NRA) call for armed guards in all schools in the United States.  This is a terrible idea.  I have written before about the psychological and social tolls increased militarism in schools takes on schoolchildren.  What is more, however, is that the idea of arming more people to curb gun violence was a laughable notion some thirty years ago, too laughable then to be taken seriously now.

Norman Lear, the renowned creative force of some of the most influential situation comedies of the 1970s, recently recalled on The Huffington Post a piece from his show All in the Family.  In this particular bit, the narrow-minded, right-leaning lead character, Archie Bunker (played by the late Carroll O’Connor), provides a counterpoint to a recent editorial broadcast on his local news station in true Archie fashion.  His cures for society’s ill must be seen to be believed, and you can watch the video below.  I am just old enough to remember when this All in the Family episode first aired; recognizing that Archie’s character was a parody, one intended to show the faults and foibles of the very positions he advocates.  And while I appreciate Lear's sharing of this worthwhile bit, his commentary about it misses two key points about today's gun control debates.

First, Lear worked in an era of television when sit-coms could address social issues, especially when Lear was their creative force (see not only All in the Family, for example, but also his Maude, One Day at a Time, and Good Times).  Second, Lear produced such pieces like this during the era of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Fairness Doctrine, when federal regulations required all broadcasters - the nationals and their local affiliates - to give equal time to two sides of an issue.  Archie’s appearance on his local newscast in this piece is in response to an early editorial of that news station.

Surely, this is a lost element of television’s democratizing power.  Given today’s 24/7 news cycle of too many channels and nothing on, views and opinion become fragmented.  (So much so that some people even feel compelled to start their own blog!)  Nevertheless, we cannot allow that to happen when it comes to something as important as curbing gun violence.  My hope is for a reasoned, rational, and well-informed discussion, which after was what Archie seemed to have been striving for.