tonight on "nightline," firearms fire storm. nine people are dead tonight after a bloody rampage in connecticut. but the debate in america is no longer about the right to bear arms, but the right to carry them everywhere. on campus, in the mall, even at starbucks. spirit of thrift. they once charged for checked luggage. now they're charging for carry on bags, even talking to a customer service rep. does spirit airlines on the fly just mean you're getting nickel and dimed for the whole journey? plus, news raider. how did this guy make his way into this live shot? and this one? and all these? his answer might surprise you.

>> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with terry moran, martin bashir and cynthia mcfadden in new york city, this is "nightline," august 3rd, 2010. >> good evening. an horrific workplace rampage left nine people dead earlier today, including the gunman at a beer distributor in connecticut. police say suspect omar thornton was worried he'd lose his job. today's violence is unlikely to quell the gun control debate and more likely to add fuel to the fire, because in a country where guns can be found in nearly half of all households, a new generation of activists are clamoring to carry guns just about everywhere. guns they say will make us all safer. as my co-anchor terry moran now reports. >> reporter: the statistics tell there are about 50 million gun owners in america, close to half

of all american households possess guns. more than 200 million guns all told. and we buy about 4.5 million more guns every year. whether you like it or not, for better or worse, it's a fact. america is an armed nation. and to gun owners, the vast majority of whom are law abiding citizens, that's the way it was meant to be. >> we're just out here, like i said, exercising our rights. just here to have a good time. >> reporter: now, more than ever, many gun owners are proudly, aggressively asserting their rights, reaffirmed by a conservative supreme court, to keep and bear arms. proudly. openly, in public. in portland, maine, a few dozen gun enthusiasts have gathered for a barbecue to promote the right to openly carry weapons in the state. and convince their non-gun owning fellow mainers it's okay.

>> they're not used to it and it's lack of knowledge. the more that they know, the more comfortable they'll be with it and that's really why we're here. we're showing that law abiding citizens carrying handguns is completely fine, completely normal. >> reporter: that's shane. he's 20 years old. a pre-med student at the university of southern maine. he organized this open carry event. and in many ways, shane is the new face of the gun rights movement in america. >> having more firearms really deters crime. >> reporter: this is the old face of the gun rights movement in america. >> from my cold dead hand. >> reporter: for decades, the national rifle association has dominated the gun debate but is now feeling the heat from grass roots group like shane's. >> the nra is -- well, it has 4.3 million members currently and it is a massive organization that's kind of an umbrella

organization, for all gun owners and firearms enthusiasts. and what we are is, we're more of a right to bear arms, right to carry openly, as well as concealed, every day. >> they want guns in really every corner of american society. >> reporter: dennis is the vice president of the bracy center to prevent gun violence. he says the little gun groups and the meetups mark a new challenge to gun control efforts, and to the nra. >> i think a lot of these pro-gun extremists sense that the politics of guns has changed. they sense that their time has come. >> reporter: is there tension between what the nra is trying to do and what the other groups are doing? >> well, there are two sides to the coin. on the one hand, i think these groups are actually willing to take the nra's rhetoric to its logical conclusion. on the other hand, when you have people who are openly carrying

their guns into starbucks, it causes enormous concern among other people who are going into starbucks. it causes a backlash. >> reporter: starbucks was the target of a pressure campaign to allow customers to openly carry their weapons in states where it is legal to do so. that's 43 of the 50 states. starbucks ceo howard schultz told me earlier this year, he felt caught offguard by the movement and had to choice but to relent. >> we woke up and starbucks was in the middle of this political crossfire. it's a very difficult, fragile situation. we're trying to abide by the law. >> reporter: the movement to open starbucks to weapons was not spearheaded by the nra. it grew on social networks and bulletin boards, internet chat rooms and mobile phone texts. the ghind of forces that fueled shane's little group and revved up more established local gun organizations like this one in virginia.

>> we're a family of people that are exercising one of the most important constitutional rights in the country, one that's usually under the biggest threat. and has been. but you don't get there by dividing yourselves up. >> reporter: this is the virginia citizens defense league, and they are not happy with the nra. >> they're the 800-pound gor little la. people are used to the name nra and those not really into gun rights don't know better and think that's the only real organization out there. >> reporter: it exploded into a nasty family fight this spring, when the nra muscled congress into exempting it and it alone from some key provisions of the campaign finance reform legislation. >> this is a carve-out, not for the gun rights community, this is a carve-out for a single organization. >> reporter: they're hopping mad, these smaller groups. they're increasingly seeing the nra has a big, bloated,

bureaucratic, too conservative gun group and they're starting to oppose their own leaders in the nra. >> that's right. in this case, the nra basically jumped into the last lifeboat and left the rest of the pro-gun community to sink. >> reporter: we asked the nra to speak to us about all this, they refused. but for all the bad blood between the nra and the local groups, they're still on the same team, as we saw in virginia. >> how many of you are nra members? geez, i'm surprised. >> how many life members? >> reporter: how many life members? okay, well, we got lots of life members, too. >> reporter: the goal of the grass roots gun rights movement is simple. more guns in more places in more of america. and while that may worry many americans -- >> these people are intimidating. >> i feel eminently unsafe around them. >> reporter: today's gun rights advocates have a blupt response. too bad. >> more guns in more public

places is what protects people. >> more guns in more public places is what protects people. >> a modern take on an old debate. our thanks to terry moran. and when we come back, are those inexpensive airline tickets too good to be true? spirit airlines reveals a new set of additional fees. [ male announcer ] learn about a free trial offer from abilify. if you're taking an antidepressant and still feel depressed,

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you to pay 45 bucks to take a carry-on bag onto the aircraft. and if you want to talk to a real person instead of a computer, well, that will cost you, too. as jeffrey kofman now reports. >> reporter: fasten your seat belt. adjust your seat backs to the upright position. and make sure you've got some spare change. >> attention, all term names. spirit is now boarding to new york. >> reporter: welcome aboard spirit the pairline that calls itself the ultra low cost carrier of the americas. taking cheap to new heights. and new lows. like this not so subtle commercial. >> dude, there's no way your mom is cheating on your dad. >> that wasn't joe, was it? >> yeah, that was your son. >> reporter: you think that's low? spirit airlines fees are even lower. now, you can fly for as low as

$1 each way. >> reporter: how do they do it? they squeeze every penny out of every airplane. >> this is an airbus 319. we outfit it with -- >> reporter: how many seats do others put in? >> about 126. >> reporter: that is ben baldanza, a man who believes passengers will sacrifice a lot to save a lot. when he took over the struggling airline called spirit and gave it, well, a new spirit. >> the way we like to think of it is, the biggest difference between us and other airlines is, they give you a free coke but charge you $150 more. >> reporter: it's not just that charge $2 for a coke, $12 to reserve a seat and they introduced the idea of changing to check a bag. $19 for the first, $25 for the second, $100 for the third. each way.

and as of this week, spirit is even charging for carry-ons placed in the overhead bins. $30 if you check it in online. $45 at the gate. >> there are parts of all of the airline product that are services. and what we should charge are the basics, get you from a to b, have a clean plane and get you a safe flight. >> reporter: that's how spirit undercuts it competitors, even by $100 or more on the same route. but at a high price. in 2008, the u.s. department of transportation said it received more complaints about spirit than any other airline. by a factor of seven. >> your greed will cost you. i've renamed them evil spirit airlines. spirit airlines service is designed to scam the customer. disgusting florida check-in staff at spirit airlines.

you can't be proud of that stuff. >> i'm not proud of that at all. our staff is not disgusting in florida, and it's a very small percentage. >> reporter: a big chunk comes from all the hidden fees. online booking automatically changes you $12 for travel cancellation insurance. unless you uncheck the box. miss your flight? whatever the reason, the change fee is $110. spirit doesn't just rebook you like a traditional airline. >> we enforce the policies. nonrefundable means nonrefundable. if you want to have insurance against changing your mind. >> reporter: spirit airlines didn't invent the idea of no frilling flying. that goes to a number of european car yerps including ryanair, now the third largest airline in europe. >> we probably take a more extreme view of low cost. in that we, everything we do is about providing a low fare to the consumer. jet blue puts tvs on board, for

example and they have a lot of room. >> no tvs here. what's that about? >> tvs are expensive. they break. and we would have to change consumers a higher ticket price to cover the cost of that tv. >> reporter: at the very modest corporate offices outside ft. lauderdale, penny pinching is part of the culture. just look at the lobby. >> one of the things is, we used to have a receptionist that sat at this desk. we realized we didn't need that. we can deal with it with a phone. >> reporter: it's a dark lobby. >> it is. we removed about two-thirpds of the lightbulbs in the building. rush you're kidding? >> no, because, again, it's easy to tell people to shut off the lights. but if you never buy the bulb in the first place, you save that money. >> reporter: how many ceos have this in their closet? do you really use this? >> i absolutely do really use it. >> reporter: it's up to each employee to keep the office clean, which means you take out your own trash and empty it in the dumpster out back.

the boss says all this penny pinching at headquarters saves between 20 and 30 cents per ticket. >> every cost is important. >> reporter: that is clear in spirit's operation center. >> what you are looking at here is where our airla planes are rt now. >> reporter: they fly to more than 40 destinations in the u.s., the caribbean and latin america. planes spend an average of 14 hours a day in the air. the time between flights is about, what, 30 minutes. >> 30 to 40 minutes. >> reporter: you can clean the planes -- >> we can clean, service them, get the plane moving again. plane makes no money on the ground. >> reporter: sure, spirit has its critics, but make no mistake. the airline's ultra low cost has earned it a serious following. they increased 50% in fliers in

50 years. >> we want everyone to like spirit and want to fly us. i recognize it's not for everyone. if you want a lot of leg room, if you want a free coke when you get on the plane -- we're not your airline and not built to be that airline. if you want to save $150 round trip versus every other plane in the states, we're a great deal. come fly us. >> reporter: he does not charge extra for seat belts. i'm jeffrey kofman for "nightline" in ft. lauderdale. >> don't speak too soon. our thanks to jeffrey kofman. and when we come back, who is this man? and why is he all over the news? the answer is tonight's "sign of and why is he all over the news? the answer is tonight's "sign of the times." why go one more round ? you don't need a rematch, but a rethink. with lunesta. lunesta is thought to interact with gaba receptors associated with sleep.

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>> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with martin bashir. >> how did a self-described balding fat man who seems to own a single beige sweater become the most televised person in britain? it certainly wasn't his good lo looks. but by high jacking the news,

he's getting his message out. for nick watt, this new kind of celebrity is tonight's "sign of the times." >> reporter: it's called, in the trade, a live shot. the anchor asks a question -- >> what's happened here? >> reporter: the reporter, pontificates, eating up air time on the 24/7 news networks. but for british viewers, there's now an extra dimension, a sort of, where's waldo. see the guy in the beige sweater? there he is again, just a wee bit smaller. and again. oh, hang on, front and center. where is he? there he is. oh, here he comes. and he's brought his shopping. the british press has now turned on him. he's now the news raider. >> i'm known as the balding fat

man with -- that's what they call me on the -- the press, i tell you. >> reporter: i've learned through bitter experience that when you film on the streets, it doesn't take long for someone to come up behind you and mock you, pull a face, flick your ear, do something stupid. andy is going to keep rolling, i'll keep talking nonsense and see just how long it takes. so, as you see, it hasn't taken us very long for someone to ruin the shot. the difference for paul is, he doesn't talk, he doesn't do anything, and he's actually trying to make a point. thanks, mate. paul agreed to meet me for fish and chips and a cup of tea to explain his motives. >> just sort of trying to say, this is who i am, you know, and -- >> reporter: speak to me. >> yeah, speak to me. exactly that. >> reporter: here's the background. londoners love to protest --

shame on you! >> reporter: against wars, oil companies, neo-fascists, and so does paul. he began to notice that cameraman would shoo him out of shot. >> the cameraman would say, could you move down please? i can still see you out of the corner of my lens, you know? >> reporter: reporters would never ask him questions. they walk past you? >> just walked past me. take the microphone to the next person alongside me. >> reporter: paul has no issue with reporters being presentable, even beautiful. he just wants, occasionally, to appear in shot, or be asked his opinion. he has a point. here is genuine footage of me just last month only questioning attractive people. that is why paul is protesting. and that is why the common man is showing his support on the

internet. you didn't start doing this to be funny? >> i no, i didn't, really. i was actually being serious, but of course, the way i look, the shape i am, the things like that, gives that sort of comical edge. >> reporter: and, the slightly mocking tone to the coverage of paul's protest -- >> one fat guy just wanted to get on telly. >> reporter: appears to make his point. if you're overweight or balding, the media might not take you seriously. or want your opinion. and they certainly don't want you loitering in back of a live shot. i'm nick watt for "nightline" in london. >> fortunately i've got eyes in the back of my head. our thanks to nick watt. and we'll be right back. but first, here's jimmy kimmel with what's coming up next on abc. >> jimmy: tonight, dylan mcdermott. mary elizabeth winstead, music from flo rida, and all the news about bristol, levi, beeber,

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