Two television entrepreneurs in California think they have just what America needs: a 24-hour shopping channel for guns.

Using the tag line “Live Shopping. Fully Loaded,” GunTV aims to take the QVC approach of peppy hosts pitching blenders and face-firming lotions and adapt it to the sale of “a vast array of firearms,” as well as related items like bullets, holsters and two-way radios.

The project is the brainchild of Valerie Castle and Doug Bornstein, two home shopping industry veterans based in Rancho Mirage, Calif., who saw what looked to them like an untapped market.

GunTV said it expected to debut Jan. 20 via national satellite and cable television providers. It will begin by airing just six hours a day, then plans to ramp up to 24 hours a day by the beginning of 2017.

Ms. Castle and Mr. Bornstein named the channel’s parent company the Social Responsibility Network, and a promotional video puts heavy emphasis on the gun safety mission.

A proposed schedule of programming allots an eight-minute segment each hour to safety public service announcements in between proposed segments on topics like women’s concealed weapon’s apparel, big-game hunting and camping.

The GunTV founders did not respond to requests for comment about the project.

Gun control advocates have reacted with frustration. In the climate of a deepening national divide over gun control, “this is something that’s definitely going to enrage a lot of people,” said Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

Citing the growing popularity of bulletproof backpacks for children, he said that the country had seen a troubling rise of entrepreneurs who are “trying to profit off of the out-of-control culture of gun violence.”

Buying a Glock on GunTV won’t be quite be like ordering a pizza. When a firearm is purchased, a distributor will send it to a retailer near the buyer, where it has to be picked up in person and a federal background check performed.

It is uncertain whether the channel will add to the enormous cache of weapons held by American citizens given that it is already fairly easy to obtain a firearm the traditional way, whether by the book at a retailer or illegally in a back alley.

Mr. Everitt said he took some relief in that. The gun market “is pretty much saturated,” he said.

Source: New York Times