Katie Couric and the producers of the anti-gun documentary “Under the Gun” are being sued by a Virginian gun rights group that was featured in their documentary.
The group is suing them for $12 million in damages over an edit in the documentary that misrepresented an interview with its members.
“We want to set the record straight and hold them accountable for what they’ve done,” Virginia Citizens Defense League president Philip Van Cleave said in a statement. “You shouldn’t intentionally misrepresent someone’s views just because you disagree with them.”
During one part of the documentary, members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League appear to have no answer to a question that Couric asks in an interview. The question she asked was, “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from walking into, say, a licensed gun dealer and purchasing a gun?”
The group stays silent in the film, but it was revealed that the group did have an immediate response to the question.
Besides Couric, director Stephanie Soechtig, Atlas Films and the TV network Epix have been named as defendants in the case that the VCDL filed.
The lawmakers that are representing the group accuse the group of maliciously editing the documentary to create “defamatory footage.”
Couric and the filmmakers later apologized and acknowledged that the edit was misleading.
A spokesman for the filmmaker, Stephanie Soechtig, said that the lawsuit “tramples” her First Amendment rights.
“It’s ironic that people who so passionately defend the Second Amendment want to trample the rights guaranteed to a filmmaker under the First,” said Stefan Friedman, Deadline reported. “Stephanie stands by Under The Gun, and will not stop her work on behalf of victims of gun violence.”
[revad2]
