Last Chance To See 600 sq mi: Hidden
Missed Connections: Gefilte Fish...and "Chain Connections"
H-Town Rock
Rock Talk, Vol. IX
We'll bet you were sitting around just now saying to yourself, "Hmm, I wonder what happened to Jim Pruett of the madcap 1990s radio duo Stevens & Pruett?" (Go ahead, admit it: You talk to yourself that way.) Turns out Pruett, who now owns a gun shop, is stirring up a bit of controversy with a new radio ad that essentially urges Houstonians to arm themselves against Katrina evacuees. In the ad, Pruett refers to some evacuees' threats that they would raise hell if FEMA deadlines weren't extended, concluding, "it's time to get your concealed weapons license." Just what we need.
Though Pruett pinned Houston's increasing crime rate in part on evacuees, he acknowledged that all evacuees aren't criminals:
"It's not all of them," he insisted. "Many of the people who are here, they have jobs. They are contributing. They are Houstonians now. And that's a wonderful thing. But there is a certain element out there that wants to prey, whenever disaster strikes, or people are weak, they prey on that moment."
True enough — and by the same token, many Houstonians act the same way. Seems to us Pruett's ad is just a way to get noticed, something he's always been good at. However, that's not enough to calm people like Debra Campbell, an evacuee Channel 13 interviewed: "I think that commercial is very inhumane. It is targeting us now. It allows Houstonians or whatever criminals to gun us down for no reason."
It's interesting to watch this all play out: The numbers show a link between evacuees and increased crime, local residents aren't happy about it and ... what? We'll see. But assuming that talk on the radio is going to lead to people gunning each other down — well, that's a little extreme. We hope.
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I think that this chronicle editorial is a much better response to this situation than this unethical gun-dealer, and I do not think that the facts are as clear as you think on this one. While I kind of remember that Pruett was a bad influence on me as a kid (racist, sexist...), I am saying unethical just in the sense that he is trying to profit on this fear of crime hysteria by adding more guns which are designed to kill humans to our community.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/4182153.html
In the story you point to, most of the statements placing the blame on refugees are made by that one bounty hunter, which might not be the best source for trying to show that "the numbers show a link." The only numbers in the article are that we have had a 17% increase in homicides over the last year and that 21% of this year's homicides involve an evacuee, even if they were the victim. These two numbers seem to say something, but don't really.
It is probably not the case, but just for argument's sake, according to the way these two numbers are presented, another interpretation could be that crazed Houstonians with their racist and gun owning tendencies have killed a bunch of refugees, since the 21% number only says that the victim or the perpetrator were evacuees.