May 10, 2012
By Martin Hobe
Anyone who has watched The Daily Show has witnessed the sensationalized spin put on by the creative editors to make the show humorous. Jon Stewart and his crew are not journalists by any means. They are comedians. That is why the show airs on Comedy Central, not a major news channel.
But in an interview with State Rep. Wanda Brown (R-Lincoln), The Daily Show's Aasif Mandvi asked about her sponsorship with the bill HB 1621. Under this bill, it makes discrimination due to gun ownership and concealed carry unlawful in the workplace. The law was backed by the NRA and had strong support on the Missouri Congress floor.
"This is preventative to protect the Second Amendment for everyone in the future," she told Mandvi.
The law does not allow gun owners to bring their gun to work, free of consequence from their superiors. If person breaks a contract or code of the owner of the business of property states workers cannot have a concealed weapon on the property, that this law does not protect person if they are fired.
But Missouri law does not protect against discrimination towards gays, lesbians, transvestites or bisexuals in the workplace.
Brown argues, along with her supporters on the floor, that this issue is not related to HB 1621.
Also, as reported by the Missouri News Horizon, she said the inspiration for the bill came after federal agents refused to inspect a meatpacking plant because the owner carried his concealed weapon to work everyday.
"I'm giving everyone the right to protect their Second Amendment and their job at the same time," Brown told the Missouri News Horizon.
In her interview with Mandvi, Brown seems uncomfortable when put on the spot, and has a hard finding the words she needs to both state her point and not look like a fool. Mandvi asks questions to try to catch Brown in a lie or reveal her true feelings about the LGBT community, but he moves farther and farther away from the original point.
The Daily Show does this on a consistent basis. To ensure the interview is entertaining, they formulate questions that turn the interviewee's words around on them, or stray so far from the initial issue at hand, throwing the interviewee completely off guard. On more than one occasion, they have taken a story completely out of context to get a cheap laugh.
To help hammer their point home in this story, the editors cleverly used images of children with guns and a video of people shooing out of the bed of a moving truck to show their viewers a picture of how the editors at The Daily Show believe gun owners behave.
Though the show sensationalizes the story to make it entertaining, the argument given by The Daily Show does hold water on the floor of the Missouri Congress. This debate has been flowing through the veins of the state's government for some time now.
So one could foresee the backlash of law to protect those who are seemingly pretty safe from discrimination in the workplace, while the LGTB community is left in the dark.
But Brown tells Mandvi this is not a civil rights debate, as much as it is to protect the Second Amendment rights of Missouri citizens. It is to protect gun owner's rights from a society that is regulating gun control and concealed carry more and more each year. This argument is clouded by The Daily Show's crafty take on the story.
Do you believe the members of the LGBT community deserve the same rights that gun owners are getting under this law? Or is The Daily Show working their magic to poke fun at gun owners and do you believe the two issues are separate?
Also, is this law a necessity, and do gun owners need protection from discrimination in the work place? Or does the Second Amendment provide us with all the protection we need to stay safe from gun control discrimination?
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