Today's controversial NRA press conference -- in which executive vice president Wayne LaPierre recommended that "every single school in America" be equipped with armed guards -- echoes loudly in this clip from a 1972 episode of All in the Family.
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Titled "Archie and the Editorial," the episode features Archie Bunker -- the family's ignorant, proudly conservative patriarch -- delivering a "man on the street" editorial on gun control for the local news.
"If it was up to me, I could stop the skyjackers tomorrow," Archie, played by the late Carroll O'Connor, says, as his son-in-law -- played by Rob Reiner -- watches on in disbelief.
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Archie continues: "All you gotta do is arm all your passengers. They just pass out the pistols at the beginning of the trip, and then pick them up again at the end. Case closed."
The line draws huge laughs from the studio audience.
Later in the episode, Archie is robbed at gunpoint by two men on the street who recognize him from TV.
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The episode was sent along to The Hollywood Reporter by the man responsible for its existence: Norman Lear, the TV producing mastermind behind All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons and countless other ahead-of-their-time comedies.
The award bearing his name -- the Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television -- will be presented to J.J. Abrams at the Producers Guild of America Awards ceremony on Jan. 26.
Both Lear and Abrams were featured on the covers of THR's Emmy Icons issue.
Email: seth.abramovitch@thr.com
Twitter: @SethAbramovitch
