POP/ROCKOklahoma Gun Battle: Reba McEntire is taking...

POP/ROCK

Oklahoma Gun Battle: Reba McEntire is taking some heat in Oklahoma for her program offering concert tickets to those who trade in guns. To counter McEntire’s plan, the Tulsa Gun and Pawn has come up with its own program--offering a 10% discount on firearms to anyone bringing in one of McEntire’s compact discs, cassettes or a concert ticket. “She hasn’t thought the problem through,” the shop’s owner, Buck Dickinson, said of McEntire. “We don’t have a gun problem. We have a criminal problem.” So far, McEntire’s exchange program has brought in 49 guns in conjunction with her Feb. 19 show in Tulsa.

*

Soul Train Nominations: Toni Braxton’s “Breathe Again,” Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” Janet Jackson’s “That’s the Way Love Goes” and Tony Toni Tone’s “Anniversary” were nominated for the 1994 Soul Train Music Awards’ R&B; Song of the Year Tuesday. Jackson and Braxton tied for the most nominations with four each, and will also vie for awards in the categories of female single (along with Houston and Oleta Adams), female album (with Mariah Carey and Tina Turner) and music video (with Arrested Development and Dr. Dre). Among other categories, Arrested Development, Digable Planets, Naughty by Nature and Onyx were nominated for best rap album, and Angie & Debbie, H-Town, Tag Team and Xscape won nods for best new artist. The awards will be presented March 15 at the Shrine Auditorium.

TELEVISION

Meeting on Crime: “Crime in California: A Town Hall Meeting,” a KCAL-TV Channel 9 special featuring Gov. Pete Wilson, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block and LAPD Chief Willie Williams, airs Sunday at 6 p.m. The one-hour live open forum, held before a studio audience, focuses on the impact of crime in California and what can be done to reduce it. The program was originally scheduled for Jan. 18 but postponed due to the Northridge earthquake.

*

TV Festival Plans: “Roseanne,” “NYPD Blue” and “Home Improvement” are among the shows that will be saluted at the Museum of Television & Radio’s 11th Television Festival. The series, running March 2-19 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, also will honor Sid Caesar and Norman Lear, plus old-time hits “Dallas,” “Barney Miller,” “Hart to Hart,” “Lou Grant,” “77 Sunset Strip,” “WKRP in Cincinnati” and the 1983 TV movie “Special Bulletin.” Other current shows that will be screened are “Mad About You,” “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” “Love & War” and “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.” Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.

*

Poll Finds TV Too Violent: If a poll conducted by the Corp. for Public Broadcasting is right, a vast majority of the public--82%--agrees with congressional leaders who think television is too violent. In a telephone survey of some 1,000 folks nationwide, 70% also said there was too much sex and offensive language on TV.

QUAKE NOTES

Magic Mountain to Reopen Saturday: Six Flags Magic Mountain will reopen this weekend for the first time since the Jan. 17 Northridge quake cut off its water supply. Starting Saturday, the park will resume its 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekend hours, and all admission proceeds this weekend will be donated to the American Red Cross Los Angeles Earthquake Disaster Relief Fund.

ART

Getty Curator Named: Nicholas Turner, an authority on Italian drawings who has served as a keeper of prints and drawings at the British Museum since 1974, has been appointed curator of drawings at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Turner will succeed George Goldner, who resigned last October to chair the departments of drawings and prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Goldner founded the Getty’s department of drawings in 1981 and took charge of the paintings department in 1989. The museum has replaced him with two people--Turner and David Jaffe, a Renaissance and Baroque art scholar who was recently named curator of paintings.

QUICK TAKES

An unidentified man in his early 20s was arrested Tuesday after he was seen defacing pop superstar Michael Jackson’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A citizen’s arrest stopped the man, who was spray painting the bronze plaque with fluorescent orange paint. Meanwhile, a new date has been set for “The Jackson Family Honors,” the NBC special that was delayed because of controversy surrounding the beleaguered pop star. The event, which will include the participation of Michael, will now be taped in Las Vegas Feb. 19 to air on NBC Feb. 22. . . . Italian screen star Sophia Loren will receive a Gold Bear--the Berlin Film Festival’s highest honor--for her life’s work when the 44th “Berlinale” opens Feb. 10. . . . Producer Gilbert Cates has set the theme for the 66th Academy Awards presentation, being held March 21 at the Music Center. This year’s Oscars will salute “those unseen men and women who make what we see on the screen, the artists and crafts people responsible for the magic of the movies.”