That’s the notice underneath a Pittsburgh Post-Gazelle article entitled Why Americans have guns. Sub-head: Let’s be honest: A lot of people own them because they are fun. Let’s be honest, there’s a lot in the article that won’t warm the cockles of gun control advocates’ hearts. Including the author’s final declaration that . . .

I’m not optimistic there will be a gun-safety “grand bargain.” The nation is divided and guns often mark the border line, even if some of us manage to straddle both sides.

Yes, well, the article’s not THAT controversial. So why disable the comments? A common practice amongst the mainstream media and, certainly, the civilian disarmament industrial complex (especially on YouTube).

Why the antis so afraid when it comes to public discourse on guns? Sure, some commentators’ flames reach Fahrenheit 451, and should be removed (as we do here on TTAG). But total censorship? What’s that all about?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

77 COMMENTS

  1. Because, generally the comments are about 95% pro 2A, even on sites that are by and for progressives?

    • Devil’s Dictionary
      Posted on June 30, 2017
      110
      Maybe it has always been true, but it seems like we live in an age of esoteric language or pseudo-language. Everyone is familiar with the gag of using “undocumented worker” in place of “illegal alien.” Janitors became sanitation engineers and teachers are now educators. It’s a part of how the American Left makes war on our civilization. By destroying the language they destroy the truth. If words no longer have common and concise meanings, then there is no truth, only force.

      There’s another aspect to this. The Progs create pleasant sounding phrases and neologisms that are packed with danger. It’s a natural outgrowth of the passive-aggressive tactics popular with the Progs. The new word or phrase is not intended to clarify or explain idea, but to warn people that the official truth has been decided and any further debate will be seen as a challenge. As everyone knows, the Left responds to a challenge with violence so the new phrase means “shut up or else.”

      With that in mind, a running list of words and phrases, that have a more ominous meaning beyond the literal, seems like a good project. This will be one of those posts that could be updated over time both for entertainment purposes and to build out a comprehensive language guide for the normie trying to navigate his way through the theocracy. Perhaps one day some smart crime thinker will create a mobile app, like a universal translator, for normal people to use when dealing with HR or reading a mainstream news site.

      Have a conversation: Whenever you hear someone say they want to have a conversation about something, what they mean is they want to shut down all debate and impose their will with regards to the subject. Having a conversation about marriage led to the end of the homosexual marriage debate in favor of the sodomites. Having a conversation about race means Progs screaming at white people about racism and white privilege. Having a conversation always means sitting through a lecture.

      Secure the border: Whenever the topic of immigration comes up, someone will start chanting about the need to secure the border. The reason for this is so they can avoid talking about immigration, without looking soft on immigration. What they really mean when they use this phrase is they have no interest in the topic and you’re a racist for bringing it up, but they’ll throw you a bone just to shut you up.

      Here’s What You Need To Know: This is a favorite of female millennial writers, who imagine themselves as brilliant because they got a gold star from their lefty teachers in school. It’s a phrase that sets themselves up as the arbiter of what is and what is not worth knowing about a topic. Unsurprisingly, what never needs to be known is anything that contradicts the one true faith. As soon as you see this in a post, it means that what you need to know is they are right and shut up.

      Conservative Principles: Alternatively, “first principles” or “principled conservative.” The Conservative Industrial Complex loves throwing this around to benefit themselves and damage anyone questioning their project. As soon as you hear Official Conservatives™ talking about their principles, it means they are either about to throw in with the Left against you or they are preparing to surrender on some cultural issue.

      Fact Check: The lefty scolds love this phrase. They fact check the crap out of everything, except their own beliefs. Those are off limits because you’re a racist. As soon as you see this phrase, you should assume that what comes next is some senseless nitpicking that let’s them dismiss anything they find unpleasant. For instance, when a normal person says migrants suck off the welfare system, they will “fact check” this and claim that “not that many” migrants go on welfare. So, you’re a bigot and shut up.

      Inclusive: This means normal people need not apply. Something that is inclusive is something that excludes the things normal people consider to be normal. A club that is inclusive, for example, will be full of homosexual males, blue haired lesbians and people with fashionable mental disorders. Inclusive is code for fringe weirdos only.

      Disturbing: Progs say this to let other Progs know that what is being described or witnessed is taboo. It’s a favor they do for one another.

      Divisive: Since uniformity and conformity are the highest virtues of Progressivism, anything that contradicts the tenets of the faith are labeled “divisive.” This lets coreligionists know that the person or argument is a major hate crime. This is also a mortal sin. There’s not much worse than being divisive.

      Polarizing: Like divisive, this word is used for people or ideas that contradict the faith, but have not yet become mortal sins. The person or idea is causing conflict in the cult, but not so much that it is a threat. This is a venial sin.

      It’s Complicated: This means it is not complicated, but we’re going to pretend it is so we can get a bunch of our friends jobs in the bureaucracy. Health care is complicated, for example, so it means thousands of jobs for liberal arts majors out of swank private colleges.

      Intellectual Case: The abuse of modifiers in modern language is rampant. What exactly is an intellectual case, versus a regular case or perhaps an emotional case? When you see this phrase, just assume the person using it is a chattering class mediocrity trying to convince you that his preferences are canonical and everyone else is just stupid.

      Moral Narcissism: Abracadabra words are so common, it is easy to blow past them without noticing. Here’s a popular example. This should be read as “magic bad word” as it has no meaning beyond that.

      There’s a lot more work to be done: Politicians love saying this, usually after they rattle off a long list of their alleged accomplishments. Professional barnacles also love using this phrase when promoting whatever cause it is they represent, a cause that is fully funded by tax payers. In both cases, it means nothing will ever be solved and the racket will go on forever or until the treasury is empty.

      Get our fiscal house in order: This is the politician or pundit saying he would like to rob you and your posterity of their last nickel.

      Unity: This always means “get whitey.” When the black street leader calls for unity, he means to declare a war on the honky. When homosexuals want unity, it means attacking straight white males. It’s why you never hear normal white males call for unity. Everyone would interpret it as a call for mass suicide.

      Healing: This means the people in charge have figured out how they are going to sweep the disconfirmation down the memory hole and refocus on the crime thinkers. For instance, after a Mohamed explodes or goes stabby, the government officials declare it a random incident of domestic violence and say it is now time for healing. It’s always a cue for their surrogates in the media to stop talking about the story.

      Come Together: Shutup

      Diversity: No white men.

      Slashed: The tiniest of decreases, usually so small that no one will notice. An agency’s budget is “slashed” when the managers do not get their usual lavish raise, but have to suffer with a small increase. Government programs are slashed when they get all the money the need, but not what they wanted. In a sense, “slashed” means the government just took a chunk out of your paycheck.

      Woke: This is the the sound a white woman makes when she is about to say something outlandishly stupid.

      Outspoken: This is a compliment for someone, who is holding the megaphone, bellowing at the crowd on behalf of the one true faith. A normal person would assume it means “speaking against the current order” but in our modern managerial age, it means the opposite. An outspoken person is someone railing against the non-conformists and deviationists for their gross hooliganism. Stalin was outspoken.

      • “Janitors became sanitation engineers ”
        The almost complete corruption of our language makes me want to vomit. Well, maybe not vomit, but instead “engage in an involuntary personal protein spill”.

        • Maybe you SHOULD have.

          Here’s one that was left off the list:

          “Too long; didn’t read: I’m too lazy to take the time to educate myself, and if I read the author’s post I might have to face the fact that my worldview will be challenged. It’s easier to disregard their post with a meaningless and condescending comment that their writing was a waste of time because I’m FAAAAAARRR too intellectually elite to bother reading it.”

    • A smallish deer with a newspaper rolled up attached under the neck. I think they got the idea from the St. Bernard’s liquor jug. It’s so the news reaches you even on safari. Cool idea

      • And here I was thinking it’s the result of various genetic engineering efforts to respeciate Africa to help it recover from overhunting.

        Of course, it appears (as would have been predictable) that they devolved into a considerably lower life form – newspaper reporters.

    • It refers to what is left behind (“post”) when the gazelle leaves. An apt description indeed.

  3. “Why the antis so afraid when it comes to public discourse on guns?”

    Because their “arguments” are lacking?

  5. It’s very simple. Their arguments are always devoid of facts and factual information. You can’t debate an issue when the other side has actual facts, and you do not. Hence, they avoid debate like the plaque. They go after that percentage of people who will take what they say at face value, and never go any further to verify whether what the article says is in fact true. Unfortunately, there are many that fall into that category.

    • This.
      Facts tend to unravel their “feelings” with the truth.
      Facts pull back the curtain and allow people to see truth and hopefully, change minds.

    • We (most of us) know what a hoplophobe is.
      Anyone know what a herpephobe is? It’s someone with an irrational fear of snakes. It’s the guy you know(or the one in the mirror) who says “the only good snake is a dead one”. Totally wrong, of course. Snakes do farmers quite a bit of good and by extension all of humanity – but the herpephobe won’t listen to that logic and reaches for the shovel or hoe anyway.
      Hoplophobes are much like that. There is no such thing as a “good gun” or a “law-abiding gun owner” – all are bad, period.
      Both types of phobics have no interest in actually learning any sort of facts about that which frightens them – because the subject itself is what frightens them. Therein lay the source of our frustration: we have the truth and all of the data on our side… but the opposition refuses to so much as look at it.
      None are so blind as those who will not see.

      • “Anyone know what a herpephobe is?”

        Fear of what you may catch when you take home what you sucessfully hit on in a bar?

        (Hey, it was the 80’s…)

      • The majority of snake bites of humans occur not by accident or even by surprising and scaring the snake. They occur when some jackwagon attempts to kill or capture the snake.

        Hoplophobes might do well to ponder the herpephobe’s experience and draw the appropriate conclusions.

      • Good Lord, I can’t believe I messed that up… Okay I’m a dork…
        It’s spelled herpetophobia.
        Y’all just stop listening to me.

        • Ophidiophobia or ophiophobia is a particular type of specific phobia, the abnormal fear of snakes. It is sometimes called by a more general term, herpetophobia, fear of reptiles and/or amphibians. The word comes from the Greek words “ophis” (ὄφις) which refers to snake and “phobia” (φοβία) meaning fear.[1]

          From Wikipedia

        • “It’s spelled herpetophobia.”

          Even if you would have spelled it that way the first time, I still would have given it the ‘Master of Wisecracks, Ralph’ treatment.

          But Ralph would have done it better. 🙂

        • Geoff, you did us proud all by yourself.

          BTW, I only pick up girls in bars in Las Vegas. Because what happens in Vegas . . . .

  7. Simple. They’re not really interested in public discourse because, despite claims to the contrary, they don’t care about safety, common sense, or any of the other tripe they spout, they’re ultimate goal is disarmament. They know that goal will not stand up to actual debate or ‘public discourse’, so they lie, make up statistics, dissemble, attempt to shout us down, or ‘Blame Trump!’

    • Absolutely. How many times have they said that they just want to have a conversation, but when the offer is extended, they refuse to come to the table? How many times have they said that they are willing to compromise, but the only compromise is caving to their agenda? How many times do they have to be caught admitting that the goal is to eliminate all hand guns and “assault weapons” before the general public finally realizes that they are continually lying?

  8. When I saw the “Comments Disabled” bar I deduced that TTAG’s moderation policy had finally gotten the required operations done and was ready to begin hormone therapy to fully complete its transition.

    As for the driving question, though, I’d say they’re taking a page out of Lenin’s book and trying to seize the telegraph office. It’s a lot easier to reassure the Emperor about his new clothes if you can tape every peasant’s mouth shut.

  9. Fear
    The truth hurts.
    Gun control does nothing to stop criminals. Never has never will.
    Anything that side does only harms law abiding folks.
    We here and most Americans want to own a gun for whatever reason.
    Most of all. We want to be left alone and not be bothered over them.
    Seems they just dont understand the words.
    “Shall not be infringed” Seems pretty direct and clear to me.

  10. The gun control movement is a top down campaign that relies on free and positive PR designed to obfuscate and intentionally mislead an uninformed electorate. Civil discourse exposes their totalitarian civilian disarmament endgame.

  11. They are following CNNs lead. CNN only allows comments on some opinion pieces. When you push a false narrative you don’t want your audience reading facts that discredit your work.

    • NPR Online found even temporarily disabling comments was unsatisfactory, so they deleted the comments section altogether. Pushing the meme is much more effective that way, I reckon.

  12. Every article on their site that does allow comments should be filled with people asking why this story doesn’t allow comments.

  14. It’s simply the digital equivalent of sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears, and shouting “NO YOU’RE WRONG, I’M RIGHT, STOP TRYING TO BULLY ME!”

    To continue flailing the deceased equine, it’s what you’re left with when you run out of facts, can’t handle losing, and won’t concede gracefully.

  15. Well, if your entire argument is that the Second Amendment is stupid, dangerous and needs to be repealed, why should you give a flying f about the First Amendment?

    • In fairness, as a non-government entity, the First doesn’t really apply to a newspaper’s decision to allow, moderate, or prohibit comments on their own website; they’re under no obligation to publish your thoughts or opinions, any more than someone is obligated to let you carve a note into a tree on their property.

      You are, of course, free to go to a place that does permit such comments (like here) and post your thoughts about said newspaper.

      • That’s true but neglects the purpose behind the 1st; to prevent the stifling of information and views. Yes, the 1st Amendment does not apply to a private newspaper. But one could hope that the newspaper, being what it is, would respect the motivations behind that Amendment and try to abide by those values.

        One would then by optimistic.

  17. They’re not afraid of public discourse, just ask them.
    All they want is to open up a dialog, so STFU and listen to their monologue, because listening to civil rights proponents is far beneath them.

  18. Well it’s not just gun control advocates. Here in the USA, it’s the left in the US in general.

    The media and the left in general have maintained culture hegemony over the US for decades due to their monopoly on the means of information distribution via news print cable news. Fox News was that first challenge to that authority, but it just because another player in that system. But the problem is, is that with the Internet the left has lost the ability to maintain that monopoly of thought since all these major platforms are all built to maximize discussion from the ground up. People just don’t like to be silenced. Which is why videos with locked comments always end up getting the worst ratings on YouTube.

    Now that’s not to say that the right won’t also try to shut out apposing views. But it’s just far more easy to see from the left than the right. Especially in a day in age when you can immediately do a fact check and respond in a social media discussion forum on a website.

  19. People would be reminded gun control is always followed by further crimes against one’s own citizens. Even before getting into the genocides that includes EO9066 following the NFA, and mass surveillance/censorship/allowing rapists to ravage the country while the money of natives is stolen to fund it following the various UK laws.

  20. if you believe the left has no firearms and are scared to death of them, that should make you feel somewhat safer. Many on the true left have firearms for the same reason you do. Lets hope that they do not use these against the right because it will be real, then. I am a gun owner, but also do not support the right blindly. They have been on a power grab for 30 years now and it has ruined the middle class.
    Wake up, people we must be on our toes, we must be ready with food guns and a means of survival. We are in danger from both camps.

    • Yep. The various RINO’s and statists on the right are even more dangerous to our freedoms, because while many on the right say they want small and constitutional government, when given the control of that government, they have inevitably, up till now, almost always voted for bigger and more intrusive government, with the globalist agenda as the end goal. That is one reason so many of the statist right of the Republican party absolutely hate Trump. Trump is not one of the “professional” life time parasitic political class and so far, he does not seem to be supportive of the globalist agenda. The statists of both parties hate him for that.

      At least the left has been honest in that they state loudly and publicly that their purpose and end goal in life is to disarm us and have government control every aspect of our lives.

  24. I used to enjoy reading the comments on MSNBC, now NBC news. I learned more from the comments than the actual left leaning news story about politics, crime and gun control. The comments were usually better written than the news story and were backed up by facts. Now, posting or reading comments are no longer permitted.

  25. Because their (gun) control agenda loses in the marketplace of free ideas. Every time.

  26. My opinion:

    Because our side has gotten more savvy.

    For quite awhile the Left kind of ran the interwebz. When they ran across things they didn’t like they flamed, shit posted and trolled to stop debate/conversation. They were damn effective at it too. Why? Because they recognized something faster than others: that the front line in politics is now online and that bullying and shit posting are, in fact, effective.

    More recently their opposition recognized this and started fighting back. People got tired of the bullshit where the Left dominated the interwebz battle space and you ended up with a full scale civil war online where both sides use the same tactics and, quite frankly, there are more of us and we’re better at this than they are because we’re sick and tired of the bullshit and therefore motivated.

    The root of this is PC speech codes and the attempt to enforce them online. Without going into a diatribe about free speech here, it suffices to say that for a very large group of people the internet represents freedom, particularly freedom of speech. The Left’s attempts to control speech, and therefore thought, made them persona non grata with A LOT of the online community and when they continued to push their bullshit the backlash was fucking epic. They simply didn’t understand how cherished the idea of freely speaking your mind online was and they kicked the hornet’s nest.

    Where the backlash started exactly I can’t say. What I can say is that there’s a thread that runs through Anonymous to 4 and 8chan to Reddit and all the way to the Cult of Kek. These people may seem wildly different, and in many cases they are, but they’re all tied together by an unshakeable belief in freedom of speech and, to borrow from RATM, an attitude of “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me”.

    Another thing the Left didn’t expect was the speed with which their opposition rallied to form a very effective online force. Again, the root of this is that they didn’t realize exactly who they were fucking with (pretty much everyone online). Fairly disparate groups formed ad hoc alliances that were shockingly capable, intelligent and absofuckinglutely ruthless. The Left had thrown out the rule book and so did the people who decided to fight back.

    When that happened the Left was, in true Alinsky fashion, held to their own [lack of] standards. That was a situation they had no clue how to handle and they only got nastier and more… Well, more clownish in their hamhanded attempts to use a playbook that was now being used against them because they failed to grasp the intersection of online politics and real life.

    You can see bits and pieces in this from everything from Milo to the Podesta hack to to the takedowns of Shea LaBouf to the “Die Cis Scum” to and Evergreen debacles. The root of it all is the attempt to police speech and thought online (and IRL) which has massively backfired. Which, in turn is the reason the HRC campaign used *cough* unreasonable tactics to try to silence Trump supporters on Reddit and the Chans, which only created a bigger backlash.

    Say what you want about Trump’s habit of Tweeting but it’s a reflection of someone who understands the online battleground, how to rally people online and how to troll on the level of Milo. Sure, it’s juvenile but it’s damn effective. Just look at how many hours CNN devotes to the “body slam” tweet. That is, by every metric and in fact the general definition of “troll”, a masterstroke of trolling.

    Welcome to the interwebz. Leave your feelz at home

    • It’s been creeping up on us for awhile now, but I believe GamerGate was when the full fury of reddit, 4Chan, et al broke loose.

      Then “pin-up girl shirt” incident when the ESA scientist Matt Taylor wore a shirt with pin-up girls on it – and the feminists went ape, attacking him online for wearing a shirt made by a woman, given to him by a woman. made with fabric produced by a female-owned company. Lots of male techies I know called that their breaking point, and came down off the fence. Now when feminists open their mouths about how it is ‘sexist’ that there aren’t more female engineers, the feminists are humiliated for their innumeracy and overall low IQ. Want to play engineer? Learn math. Can’t do math? Can’t be an engineer. It’s that simple.

      The left has been playing a game against civil society for a long time, depending upon grown-ups being nice, polite and listening to the left as tho the left has a serious argument. The left overplayed their hand, and many people are no longer willing to be polite. The left, of course, is now recoiling in horror – and now they want to play the “civility” card. This is much like a mouthy woman surprised at getting punched in the mouth – because she assumed that men will never hit a woman for crap that, if a man said it, would get him knocked on his ass.

  27. CNN used to allow comments on their articles via Disqus, but not long after Sandy Hook, they got rid of the comments section. If I recall, they disabled them right around the time the AWB died in the Senate.

    There were tons from the “hypothetically safe” crowd making the same old parroted comments, and “commonsense,” unfortunately, became the most ubiquitous buzz word in the debate. The beauty of it was that gun owners were coming out of the woodwork, defending each other, and making a lot of really compelling, reasoned arguments. The anti-gun crowd was getting stomped in those debates.

    This is pure speculation, but I’m willing to bet that CNN realized that lots of people were reading the comments, and allowing comments meant that they were losing control of the message, so they just did away with them.

    I would apply that same reasoning anywhere that doesn’t allow commentary. They want maximum control over the message that people walk away with, and don’t want their arguments challenged. To me, that’s a pretty good indicator that your argument is weak, but we knew that.

  28. Why do intolerant, anti-civil rights bigots fear public discourse?

    They lies they proffer, the propaganda they manufacture, the blatant attempts at emotional manipulation in support of their agenda, all of their efforts are pathetic. Their arguments fall apart with even the most cursory examination. Public discourse is much more of a threat to their agenda than the NRA will ever be.

  29. Having been at this a tad longer than most here, I will observe that the type of people who become invested in gun control remains the same over generations: either people for whom emotion supplants facts and evidence, or people who want to control other people.

    Most of those heavily invested in “emotion over facts” are often women. Many of the “they just want to control people” via “gun control” are men. Your job, as a RKBA debater, is to

    1) Show undecided people that there are people ruled by emotion, regardless of facts and stats. Undecided people often want to make a decision based on facts, not emotion, so you need to fill the “fact void,” and then let them decide.

    2) Expose those who merely want control; if it isn’t going to actually reduce crime, then what’s the point of the gun control effort?

    Whilst I was in the California SF/SJ Silicon Valley area in the early 90’s, there were several public debates on gun control as the Brady Act and the Schumer/Feinstein “We don’t like guns with naughty features” Act we up for debate in 1994. I attended as many of these debates as possible and put in my $0.02, laying out facts and figures, as best as I could obtain in those days. People who come to the RKBA fight today have no idea what a force-multiplier the Internet and easy access to public information in for the RKBA debate. Back then, I had to order my own copy of the FBI UCR. Today, you can just look up the stats, complete with Excel spreadsheets, online.

    Showing up to debates with government reports, books, references, etc – really helps. I cannot stress this enough; when you reveal the sources of your data, especially when they come from law enforcement/DOJ sources themselves, you’ve just laid down a big “credibility marker” in front of the undecided. Remember: Your job in a debate online or in person is to lay out a case in front of the undecided and let them decide. The people invested in emotion over facts aren’t swayed by facts. You won’t convert them – their emotion blinds them to facts. They might recognize the facts, but their emotional state is such that they can’t accept them.

    But by all means, put time and effort into exposing those who cynically use emotional arguments to further their efforts to control other people.

    • “People who come to the RKBA fight today have no idea what a force-multiplier the Internet and easy access to public information in for the RKBA debate.”

      The ‘force-multiplier the Internet’ works in their favor as well, with heart-wrenching images and videos to make *their* emotional point.

      It’s a sword that cuts both ways…

      • Not really. Because the antis have always came armed with lots of stories, pictures, and ‘victims’ with sob stories. Those are all available on line also, but there is an upper limit to how many sob stories a person can hear before they stop caring.
        The antis are there now, on what pilots call “the back side of the power curve”. The point at which adding more power just makes the stall deeper. It is why the bigger the whoppers they now publish(CNN, NYT, etc.), the stupider they look and the more viewers they lose. They’re on the back side, and what used to work for them now just drives them down. So they double down and lose even more…. and it amuses me no end!
        🙂

      • They had those back then, too. You are forgetting that the gun controllers have always had the media on their side. TV stations and bird cage liner media were always happy to provide as much graphic gore and heart-wrenching copy as they needed for their presentations in debates.

        Getting hard numbers, however, used to be very difficult. Hell, getting the text of Supreme Court and US Circuit Court decisions used to cost real money. I remember paying quite a wad of bills to get printed copies of court decisions back in the early 90’s. Today, you can get all of that information for free.

    • “I cannot stress this enough; when you reveal the sources of your data, especially when they come from law enforcement/DOJ sources themselves, you’ve just laid down a big “credibility marker” in front of the undecided.”

      This is very true. The only other numbers you will find are ones from the “pro” and “anti” camps. Those numbers are therefore “biased.”

      Now if you’re good enough to take only Bloomberg numbers and studies and eviscerate the gun grabbers, all the better. For a good example of that, read the decision issuing a temporary injunction in Duncan v. Becerra (the California magazine ban case).

  30. “”””or people who want to control other people.””””

    This has always been the most interesting part. The hidden ‘why’ in their thought process. Why the control. Is it fear based, greed based, OCD, ego ect.

    If the ‘Why’ could be figured out it would go a long way in winning the battle to keep the 2nd intact.

    Of the ‘Controllers’ I’ve questioned/discussed gun control with, the deeper I question the angrier they get. Call it being triggered or whatever, but some have become red in the face mad when their motives are questioned beyond the superficial.

    • It has now become my observation in life, after decades of observing people, that there are really only two types of people in the world:

      1. People who just want to live their lives.
      2. People who want to control other people.

      The second category includes both politicians, crusader types who become journalists, lawyers with an agenda, etc, criminals and the new SJW types.

      • The second category also includes teachers, cops, and bureaucrats at every level. Basically any position that has any authority over other people attracts petty tyrants.

        There are even a lot of husbands and wives who treat their spouses that way.

    • Your experience mirrors my own. The more I ask “why?”, the crazier they become.

      I’ve evolved my discussions with the control types some in recent years – moving from “why?” to “how?”

      How do you propose to limit access to guns/reduce the number of guns/stop people from owning or buying or making guns? etc.

      I’ve found that most all their talking points seem to have an implicit assumption that some dormant, massive authority structure exists that would make it possible for them to implement their gun control (and other forms of control, for that matter) agenda but they can never seem to describe how this is going to take place. Oh, sure, they say’ “the police would …”, “a new law would …”, “the military …” but it is easy to point out the numerical reality that gun owners out number the police and military by two orders of magnitude and that laws only work to change behavior when they are obeyed (New York Safe Act, please call your office). They still get increasingly angry with this line of questioning but in my experience, they seem to have a better realization of the nature of the opposition when I put it in terms of “how?” I have gotten some pretty interesting reactions to the question, “How do YOU propose to take MY guns?”

      The “why” question allows them to be philosophical and talk about what people “need” and vague societal benefits and the common tropes about crime and access to guns and to decry gun owners heartlessness and yada yada yada. The “how” questions force them to think, if only for a moment, and one can often see on their faces their resignation to the fact that their dream world cannot come to pass.

  31. They are “persuading” mainly via social proof. The simple fact of divergent opinions, even baseless, blows that up.

    Can’t have the deplorables speaking up. They might realize they’re not alone, and feel less deplorable.

  32. Its really very simple. They know their arguments won’t stand up to even causal examination, so they don’t allow comments at all.

  33. “Why the antis so afraid when it comes to public discourse on guns?”

    You guys are overthinking things again. They do it because they’re assh0les.

  34. It’s not just guns. They do it when they discuss any controversial topic. The bottom line is that the facts are not on their side. On some level they know it, even if they refuse to see the truth and cling desperately to their beliefs. They know that they cannot defeat factual arguments brought by the other side. They can only respond with emotion, platitudes, and lies. Then they discovered that it’s just easier to shut down discussion all together.

  35. When an author drops that at the end of his article, he does so because he doesn’t want his readers to see other information, other points of view, or convincing refutations, which is normally the case. He wants a dictatorship on the information his readers receive, because he wants them to agree with him. He wants to convince them. And he can’t do that with 2A advocates clear and concise refutations usually posted with these types of articles.

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