There’s many reasons why I don’t like the people behind the gun control movement, even on a personal level. But one of the biggest reasons is that they don’t accept any criticism or opposition to their position. Their beliefs are the right and true ones, and any argument to the contrary is regarded as a personal betrayal and instantly banished. In order to try and understand the other side and see if they ever make a good point (hint: still waiting), I’m a member of many gun control advocacy forums — just lurking in the background, watching. One, a would-be subreddit forum, /r/guncontrol, failed to get off the ground. Since it didn’t get any followers and crashed, I don’t mind broadcasting the fact that I was watching. But its draconian rules are a perfect example. Their rules mimic the majority of other gun control advocacy groups’ forums, and give a good insight into the way the other side thinks . . .

The forum, that’s still limping a long, believes that they’re the victim of a deliberate campaign to overload their area with pro-gun posts or criticism of their policies. They don’t consider for a second that it might just be that their minority view might be wrong and the pro-gun people are trying to help. No, they are always the victim. To combat this perceived onslaught, they implemented a rule that identified pro-gun posters will be banned if they are too vocal. From the rules:

You will be banned if:

  • You make a pro-gun argument, and any one of the following apply:
  • Use an account less than a month old;
  • Use an account with less than 15,000 in comment karma; [ED: a metric of the popularity of previous posts]
  • Post in more than one thread per day (within 24 hours of your last post).

You can come in with an alt[ernate account]! But you can’t use it to make a pro-gun proliferation joke, point, or question.

So, they don’t want people making any pro-gun points. They only want people to post opinions that match their own point of view, and will accept no debate or discussion on the topic. Theirs is the right way, and they will tolerate only a small contribution from the wrong people.

In furtherance of that goal, they specifically banned any posts from pro-gun people asking them to defend their positions. Not only have they banned any posts arguing with their point of view, they don’t even want to have to defend it. Apparently this is a logic free zone and they like it that way.

NO GUN OWNER “STAND YOUR GROUND” POSTS

Posted by a gun nut and usually prefaced with, “Honest question”, “Looking for an opinion”, “Just curious why you feel this way, looking for a rational discussion.” And then followed by the OP arguing and posting 40-50 times. We get too many of these.

Yup, they really don’t like debate. But not only will they not tolerate any comments that are against their position, they outright ban any news sources that they disagree with. I’m actually kinda proud that we made the list, though.

Linking to nutter sources like Glenn Bleck’s theblaze, Fox news, washingtonexaminer.com, wnd.com, thetruthaboutguns.com, or other “bubble” sources is not permitted. The posts will be removed and may result in a ban.

And that’s their modus opperandi: silencing the opposition. They don’t want anyone to question their pro-gun control views, and they won’t accept any debate on the subject. They don’t respect the Second Amendment and they feel the same way about the First. Their authoritarian, nanny-state supporting nature comes out in full force, and they can’t help it. They’re superior and will not hear any argument to the contrary.

Every time there’s an incident involving firearms, I always take the opportunity to re-examine my own beliefs. Would new laws have stopped this latest tragedy? Is there something inherently dangerous about the AR-15? Is a ban on “high capacity magazines” really a good idea? As Robert can attest, in the days following the Newtown shooting I was reluctant to write anything about these topics because I was still in the process of chugging through the data. But the one point that always starts me back down the path to being a vocal supporter of gun rights is the idea that if the gun control advocates’ position is correct, why can’t it stand any criticism? Why are their YouTube comments always closed? Why is there never an actual “conversation?”

That’s something that I love about the gun rights community; that the comments sections are always open. We foster debate, accept criticism, and when someone goes off the deep end and stops making logical sense we let them know. It’s a more honest way of conducting ourselves, and to my mind gives gun rights people more credibility.

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254 COMMENTS

      • Name calling shows a lack of intelligence and maturity. It makes a person look like an idiot. And the other side has already won the argument. By considering the source.

      • Find us an anti-gun forum that encourages debate and allows members to make effective counterpoints or rebuttals and I might take your mealy-mouthed equivocation a little more seriously.

        Might.

        • He didn’t say he had gun-control forums that are open, he said that the echo chamber isn’t just on the left side.

          But I don’t know what he’s talking about, it’s not like someone would get fired from a gun publication for writing a dissenting article or anything.

          gulp.

          (note: it’s laudable that ttag doesn’t ban those that disagree)

        • What he said is true, you should probably understand it before mouthing off.

          Right wing pro-gun forums are every bit as bad as left wing anti-gun forums. They’ll ban you for disagreeing with them, and they’re just waiting for you to do anything they can try to use to justify a ban.

          That’s because people are stupid morons who can’t handle being told they’re wrong.

        • Look, I don’t even give part of a shit about that; I said find me ONE anti-gun forum that serves as an analogue to TTAG, where everyone is allowed to make their case equally. If you can do that, I still won’t apologize to you, but at least your whining will be a little more justified.

          Now, you think you can find one, or did you not understand?

        • Metcalf wasn’t fired for expressing a divergent view on a forum. He was fired for justifying his suggestions based on an interpretation of the 2nd Amendment that was in open conflict with current SCOTUS case law, without bothering to note it, in a publication whose advertisers are trying to sell the kinds of guns people actually want to buy.

          There are regulatory positions which would meet little opposition. I’ll give you one: In the states whose law I am familiar with, the home of a person on probation is liable to search without cause. How often is this fact taken advantage of by local or county police? Almost never. Why not? There are others, but one is enough for the moment.

        • http://www.dailykos.com/news/Guns — maybe.

          Almost all of their diarists are anti-gun at some level, but from what I’ve seen (though I can’t stomach the place for long), they have some pretty lively arguments with people from our side in the comment sections.

          Still, they’re a liberal echo chamber kind of like TTAG is a pro-2A echo chamber. We have a range of opinions, and nobody gets banned for disagreeing, but you don’t really see anyone commenting (and especially not writing articles) who isn’t already basically on board with the whole gun thing.

        • Tribalism is the state of being organized in or advocating for, a tribe or tribes. In terms of conformity, tribalism may also refer to a way of thinking or behaving in which people are more loyal to their tribe than to their friends, their country, or any other social group.

          An echo chamber is a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission inside an “enclosed” space, often drowning out outside views.

          And I can simply throw the question back into your face. Point out a Pro-Gun Forum that promotes any discussion on reasonable restrictions on firearms that actually make sense.

          Now there aren’t many reasonable restrictions out there, but point still stands.

          Yes, the screaming bloody-shirt waving by the anti’s is disgusting, but the Pro community doesn’t do enough to encourage ownership to people outside of their comfortable political spectrum.

        • Whata bout that MikeB3000, trollin around here? He was here for ages, not so much any more. His opinions were discussed, highlighted, argued, to high hell and back. As far as I know, he’s not banned. It’s not often these antis come to this side of the woods and pitch an argument.

          Again, logic goes in one ear and out the other.

          I’m always open to debate. But when antis start to talk about logical fallacies, and utopian societies, stating a problem and not providing a viable solution, or any solution for that matter, the conversation quickly deteriorates.

        • @Lucas D.
          I think you’ve proven his point by throwing a minor tantrum over even a minor criticism of our own side. And it’s true, small minded hostility is not limited to the left. And when you disagree with someone I think it’s better to try and convince them that they are wrong rather than becoming hostile, accusing them of treason or any of the other silliness internet are famous for.

      • If you speak the truth and your argument and your logic hold up under scrutiny and in open debate, and people agree with and repeat your truthful assertions, does that constitute an “echo chamber?”

        Regardless of how many people agree with and repeat an idea, if the point under discussion is still open to debate and reconsideration, it is NOT an echo chamber.

        • Absolutely correct. Is it our fault that the antis don’t stay around here for long? They are never kept out. In fact, we love having them. We thrive on open debate. Is it our fault that reason and logic send them running? I think not. its simply the nature of things. When the light gets too bright, the roaches must find darkness in which to hide.

          • Is it just me? Or does anyone think it odd that three foundlings wandered into the room at the same time?

    • That is because Liberals, literally, have brain damage. Their amygdala, which controls the emotional reaction of the body to outside stimulus, is under-developed. Thus they cannot process data that is outside their already-integrated mindset.

      You don’t have to believe me. Believe 1. Peer-reviewed studies show the the liberal brain and the conservative brain are indeed different in this area (http://blog.psico.edu.uy/cibpsi/files/2011/04/brains.pdf), 2. The Amygdala is the “flight or fight” response center of the brain and can suffer from lack of exercise and without it, is subject to “hijack” (http://www.veterinaryteambrief.com/article/retrain-your-brain-learn-amygdala-hijack)

      How did I learn all of this? Read the amazing analysis and manual on “how to debate Liberals” at the Anonymous Conservative – r/K selection theory of evolutionary psychology and its relation to our current political system.

      Everything you know about Liberals, explained, for once and for all. Understand them and beat them.

      Debate tactics

      r/K Selection Theory

      • Can you not appreciate that you’ve just equated brain”underdevelopment” with “brain damage”? You do understand that an “underdeveloped” penis is not “damaged”, right?

        • Hello, this is my first time to this site. I’m pro gun, only to an extent . I don’t approve of assault weapons for the public. I do approve of gun registration. It will help the L. E. A. keep tract of guns and a ban on assault weapons will help keep the police alive. As the bullets from these guns will penetrate a police vests. The police have stated that these weapons are only designed for one purpose and that’s to kill other people. I believe in supporting L.E.A.

    • How to debate Liberals: Calmly and carefully introdue an amygdala hijack to their system, over and over:

      “Now as we have written, when you are debating a Liberal, the key is to present several stimuli to them, which will be flagged by their amygdala, and produce the uncomfortable aversive stimulus they are so terrified of. Lock eye contact to load up their amygdala, out-group them with the crowd, diminish their status in the eyes of observers, present to them an image of inevitable defeat, highlight how much better and easier someone else has it, highlight how frustrated they must be at some failure, show how logic boxes them in and makes them look stupid, etc. As you are doing this, you want to be the exact opposite of R. Lee Ermey. You do not want to draw their amygdala’s attention away from these stimuli with big showy displays of emotion, anger, or elaborate physical gestures. You want their full concentration on what you present to them.

      You want to be the hypnotist, calmly giving their amygdala nothing to focus upon, except their amygdala hijack, as you present hijack after hijack. They will instinctually counter this by trying to make you grow emotional. They will yell, and rage. They will say insanely insulting things. They will try to demean you. They will grow ever more agitated. They want you to engage them and get emotional. This may even be a conditioned behavior they developed through experience. Begin the yelling, to precipitate an emotional outburst in their opponent and that will shift their own amygdala’s focus, offering them some relief. I can’t say for certain, I just know they all will do it, and if you get emotional in response, they will immediately look physically relieved.”

      The Anonymous Conservative:
      http://anonymousconservativ.ipage.com/blog/

      • I get it! “Defeat” a liberal by being as smug as he is! Satisfying, isn’t it?

        Yes, Mina… I read it. All of it. I’m not disagreeing with you, exactly. I’m just pointing out that there’s a price to be paid by being underhanded against an underhanded individual.

    • “They don’t want anyone to question their pro-gun control views, and they won’t accept any debate on the subject. They don’t respect the Second Amendment and they feel the same way about the First. Their authoritarian, nanny-state supporting nature comes out in full force, and they can’t help it. They’re superior and will not hear any argument to the contrary.”

      And that mindset clearly demonstrates that the 2nd Amendment is not “outdated” – it is as relevant to stopping the authoritarian “progressives” as it was to the people who fought George III.

    • I’ve been banned from a liberal website too, and I’m a very left liberal. When I spoke up about the Colorado recall and the lesson we ought to learn about the right to bear arms, I got banned.

      To be fair, I’ve been to a conservative website to find out if I would get banned there too.

      • They’re just the two wings of the same statist bird. The real battle isn’t between the party of “gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme” and the party of “kill kill kill kill kill”. The real battle is between Freedom and Tyranny.

      • You’re welcome to hang here, Wassim. We’re more apt to bite each other than to bite you. We like to play.

    • Its not a question of gun control its litterly a right in the constitution that says and i quote “right to bear arms” and dont say they didn’t think about the guns we have now they had more than just muskets they were rare but other guns were there. its a thing about more background checks and physiological checks when they go to buy them. And if i go through the trouble to get a licences to get a fricken ak-47 if i want. And did u know on average pizza arrives faster than the cops and u want we to give up my gun, NO THANKS F ODFFgenerally is valid for a set time, sometimes only for a few minutes or hours. If users do not sign in during this time limit, they must repeat the process and request another verification code.generally is valid for a set time, sometimes only for a few minutes or hours. If users do not sign in during this time limit, they must repeat the process and request another verification code. and pizza arrives faster than cops and u want me to give up guns. F OFF.

  2. And you know “they” are lurking here, but one does wonder why so few of them post?

    Fear?

    But what are they afraid of?

    • they are afraid that if they engage in a dialogue, they may end up being convinced . . . . or that they enjoy my personally private fantasies about Shannon Watts(TM)(aka SUNSHINE) and deep down, would be willing to pay for the live feed of our night on the town. 🙂

      • You very well may have the right of it Sir.

        I wonder what she sleeps in?

        And what size shoe do you think she wears?

      • They are afraid of withdrawl. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the Savage line “liberalism is a mental disorder.” Well, I think I’ve figured out which one it is.

        Liberal arguments are all based on emotional response and it occurred to me that the beliefs themselves are based on emotional satisfaction. It’s satisfying to believe that you can fix all of the worlds problems instead of accepting the cold, hard reality that no matter how hard you try, bad things will still happen, inequity will still exist, and life will still be unfair. It’s emotionally satisfying to have a discussion with peers and everyone agrees with everything, instead of being a conservative and finding points of contention with many other conservatives on varying points, after all, conservatives (and not all of us here are) really only agree with each other in comparison to how much we disagree with liberals. It’s emotionally satisfying to be a liberal.

        It is my understanding that emotional satisfaction comes with a release of dopamine in the brain (and maybe seratonin?). Dopamine is the same brain chemical that causes the high that comes from narcotics. It’s the release of dopamine that addicts are chasing. It is my pet theory that liberals, at least the particularly rabid ones, are addicts. They are addicted to the dopamine release that agreeing with other liberals gives them. I think this is why they get so angry and mean when a conservative disagrees with them, we are denying them their high.

        Are there any mental health professionals among us who would care to weigh in? Is there something about addiction I’m missing or have wrong? My knowledge of addiction brain chemistry mostly comes from Dr. Drew in the pre HLN days, circa Adam Corolla’s co-hosting. I’ve known former/recovering addicts, but never witnessed the darkest of the behavior myself, I’ve only had them tell me how bad they used to be.

        I wonder if a study could be done to see if the brain chemistry of a liberal compares to addiction, or maybe an MRI scan while the subject listens to various talking points from both sides and also while they state their beliefs while someone agrees with them and while someone refutes them.

        I hope I’m wrong because the only way for an addict to recover seems to be to hit rock bottom, and the only way for a political ideology to hit rock bottom is to take the country with it.

        (Jesus, I get wordy)

        • @Marcus,

          Do you cheat and take that out of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Manual

          🙂

          Because it sure sound the correct diagnostic and description of problem

          • I’m not certain it’s literally a “mental disorder”, but there sure is hell SOMETHING wrong with ’em.

            I more or less decided to call it a “cognitive disorder”; that’s to say, they may not have specifically something wrong with their minds, in a sanity/insanity way, but there is a seriously out-of-whack cognition going on. They’re not seeing things the way they really are, and, as a result, it’s practically impossible for them to work out the proper response and solution.

            • Everybody knows about the blind spot in the eye, right? Well, I posit that people have a very similar thing going on in their brain, only with thoughts/beliefs instead of images. They literally can’t see the fact, right in front of their face that the mass shootings take place in gun-free zones, for example.
              DANGER: Piers Morgan (possible emetic): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC4JJWUtzkc

              • In the article, I noted this:
                “”I firmly believe that all U.S. citizens have a right to keep and bear arms, but I do not believe that they have a right to use them irresponsibly,” he added.”

                Have we been having a pissfest over the distinction between the right to keep and bear arms and the right to shoot them?

                ‘Cause I don’t really think you have a “right” to empty your magazine into a crowded subway.

                The difference, of course, being the effect on persons other than the owner of the gun. This is why even we Libertarian loons believe in _some_ rules, like, “Don’t yell ‘theater!’ at a crowded fire” or “Don’t drive like a Californian” or “Don’t shoot people except to stop a direct threat to life and limb.”

              • “Have we been having a pissfest over the distinction between the right to keep and bear arms and the right to shoot them?”

                Well, to my way of thinking, there is no way to separate the two; we are not living in a giant, static FIREARMS MUSEUM. There is no reason to keep and bear them if they cannot be shot. Because there are far cheaper bludgeons and clubs around.

                At least I THINK that was your point.

              • “At least I THINK that was your point.”

                No, I think not exactly. I’m talking about the difference between shooting at the guy who just kicked your door in and is drawing a bead on you vs. shooting at people on the subway.

          • I was about to say, “Reaction Formation! They taught us about that in high school!” and then I realized, I wonder if any of the kids coming through today’s propaganda mills have even heard of such a thing?

      • Not at all. Liberals have brain damage: a very undeveloped Amygdala and as such are unable to process new information because there is no way to deliver that information to them without their amygdala going into overload (i.e. amygdala hijack.)

        This is all verified with peer reviewed studies, here’s one: http://blog.psico.edu.uy/cibpsi/files/2011/04/brains.pdf
        It shows the Conservative brain to have a very large amygdala and the Liberal brain to have a very small one. That is the flight or fight center of the brain.

        Thus Liberals do not view logic and rational thought as we do: to them, it is negative (and scary!) stimulation of their flight or fight center of their brain and to be avoided at all cost.

        If you want to understand a Liberal so that you can beat a Liberal, you need to be reading the Anonymous Conservative.

        “This site is dedicated to a simple theory in Evolutionary Biology which explains why all of this is happening in our society. Called r/K Selection Theory, this concept explains why we have two political ideologies, why productive societies will inevitably decay into immoral cesspools of failure and then collapse, and why we will inevitably rise again.”
        http://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/the-theory/rk-selection-theory/

        • I’d take the author a whole lot seriously if such an “expert” as he could even understand how to use apostrophes correctly.

    • Several lurkers posted on the Metcalf threads. Whit and Gary come to mind. But what was there to say on that issue, really? There are sensible arguments about the regulation of criminals that are quite strong but, for whatever reason, anti’s tend not to make them. It isn’t on the agenda. They aren’t about “criminal violence,” but about banning guns, because they themselves at the moment can’t understand the utility of guns in sane hands. They aren’t Jefferson. Clearly most of the so-called ‘mass’ shootings over the last ten years have been perpetrated by dems or islamists. Fine. But the notable reality is that several of them were known to have either delusional disorders or pronounced violent ideation and fantasies…yet nothing was done. While I would take a person who repeatedly stabs a restaurant table violently while yelling “he’s dead!” to be a menace (Rahm), certainly the mental illness of the Aurora, Tucson, VT, and Newtown killers was known to their schools and families WHO DID NOTHING.

      The elephant in the room (no, not Christi) is family responsibility. It simply isn’t OK to let little Billy the Delusional or Gary the Gang Banging Meth Dealer continue to hold firearms….and it is the family’s responsibility to call the intervention when they know the facts and make that non-ownership happen. Without involving SWAT.

        • In contemporary parlance ‘islamist’ means an advocate for islam against the west, Christian, Jew, or secular, or otherwise. The locution to name a religious of a follower of Muhammed is “a Muslim.” I don’t know what you would like to call Major Hassan. I know that our Administration refuses to denominate him a terrorist or a radical islamist. Why this is true has been left obsure.

          Now, I’m not a Christianist. Is that someone who wishes to restart the crusades?

        • No, I’m a Neodruid. Freedom is my Worship Word. What should I have said? Mohammedans? Muslims? My point is that I’m really pissed off at the ones who spend an hour a week paying lip service to the Prince of Peace and spend the rest of their life practicing the opposite of what he was trying to teach.

          • I believe “Muslim” is sufficient in any situation. “Islamist” is a made-up word, with vaguely derogatory connotations, like the “Mooslim” you see around, or “Mohammedan”, a 19th-century term. Akin to “negroes” and “colored people”: not mean, just stubborn.

            It’s my belief, though I can’t prove it now, that “Islamist” is a made-up word that came from some Neocon think tank. This is all about dividing everyone. Until you realize the game is DIVISION, you’re behind the curve.

  3. I have seen this on FB from liberal friends who don’t like to have serious discussions about guns, until the shit hits home. One person sent me an IM asking me what kind of gun to buy b/c she was being stalked. . . . of course, publicly, she criticized me for being pro gun. Yep, you guessed it. I outed her. 🙂

    • I’ve seen what you are talkin about play out in real life. A friend of mine from high school hated guns for years. Well he recently came out and his now ex girlfriend’s brother and friends jumped him and beat him down pretty good. He’s out of the hospital now and we got to talkin one day when he asked if I had anything for sale… I wish I would have I coulda had a convert damn me and my short sightedness!!!

    • I’ve had that happen repeatedly. I don’t out them. Two of them were Million Mom March people who still vouched for me on state paperwork. Imagine. Recently our very safe (no murders) township called a meeting to address increased burglaries. Two hard-left people called me the minute they saw it. “What? Here? I should by a gun, but only because of this. Help me.” It’s normal. Violence isn’t about guns. It’s about criminals and those with serious mental illness. Yet, taking on those issues head-on just upsets the anti’s. So they obsess on guns, thus becoming the “useful idiots” (Lenin) of the ‘liberal’ statist power elite. Such has always been the way of the world. Athens banned weapons and private guards within the city. Then they let one popular man have a private guard. He then immediately established a tyranny. Nothing is new under the sun.

  4. Their rules alone spell out the moral loss of their cause. And at the very same time, the righteousness of ours. Seriously..change the debate matter to anything, drug abuse, politics, domestic violence…any topic you wish. They loose, every time with those rules.They loose morally and intellectually in every way a person can.

  5. Supporting gun rights is a principled position that we take. “Antigun” statism and anticulturalism is more like a religion, one that tolerates no heresy and thinks of us as the new antichrist on Earth. The fact is, if they could, they’d kill us. And that’s the truth.

    • “The fact is, if they could, they’d kill us. And that’s the truth.”

      If they could kill us… and get AWAY with it. Important point.

      Know this beyond any doubt: the way they run their forums is precisely the way they’d run the country, if they could.

      And that includes re-education camps and disappearances.

      • “Know this beyond any doubt: the way they run their forums is precisely the way they’d run the country, if they could.

        And that includes re-education camps and disappearances.”

        In 2ish years of trolling, that may just be the scariest (i.e. most truthful) thing I’ve ever read on this site.

      • Subconsciously they know they need a hitman. Consciously they can only call him (them) ‘the armed guys with uniforms (usually), hired to keep criminals, and you, in line.” They don’t realize they’ve hired people who will become their bosses, in essence paying their own jailors because they are unwilling to take any responsibility, sharing the burden of safety. Naturally I know many people who have guns, skeet or target shooters. I know none who commit crimes. “If you eliminate guns, you’ll still have a crime problem. If you get criminals off the streets, you cannot have a gun problem.” Cooper.

      • I might have got the Pravda article from here.

        “Do not be fooled by a belief that progressives, leftists hate guns. Oh, no, they do not. What they hate is guns in the hands of those who are not marching in lock step of their ideology. They hate guns in the hands of those who think for themselves and do not obey without question. They hate guns in those whom they have slated for a barrel to the back of the ear.”

    • Yes, and whereas I have no fear of the punk in hipster glasses at Starbucks who might wish me dead, I don’t like my chances against a SWAT team. That’s one reason I so fervently hope that we can turn the Progressive movement by political means. I really think that tide is receding again even as we speak, and Progressive will be a dirty word for a few decades like it was for a while after Wilson and FDR. Ever vigilant.

      • Well, Freedom lovers of all stripes are working on various aspects of the tyranny problem – there’s the Oath Keepers, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, the Tenth Amendment Center, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and so on.

        I’m really jazzed about the idea of not only jury nullification, but state and even local nullification, where the state or local authorities will actively protect their citizens from unconstitutional federal encroachment, for example http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2013/10/easton-ks-passes-ordinance-to-nullify-federal-gun-control/

        The Federal govt is really only supposed to have those powers expressly delegated to it by the states through the Constitution.

        • @Hobbez
          No, I think to myself, there goes another person who was probably hurting no one getting high. I do cheer when dealers get busted, as they tend to be violent.

    • Yep, Marxism=communism=socialism=liberal/progressive, all variations of elitist statist control all marked by mass death and totalitarian comtrol, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and the Liberal/progressives support of abortion. Mass deaths over a hundred million, over the last hundred years,especially when the mass murder of the unborn is included.

      If the progressives had their way; all people that love freedom and the second amendment would add to that list.

        • That’s what I was going to say. As appalling as abortion is, it isn’t equivalent to the slaughter of people who are already breathing the free air.

          • Enjoy that free air. Its days are numbered. They’re working on the details somewhere in the bowels of a huge, squat building without windows.

            Did you hear that the Spanish government is working on the “free sunshine” thing?

          • Or the Breath of Life?
            “Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
            Genesis 2:7

        • You prove my point Richard and ING, You have dehumanized a living being that has a beating heart moving limbs and in the womb of a woman for short 9 months of a being that could live for a hundred years.

          So if all the millions of babies that have been murdered had been allowed to live to where they could be asked a simple question; “do you want your mother to kill you before you have a chance to be born”? How do you think most of those little boys and girls would answer? How about you Richard or ING, how would you answer that question now if your mothers were thinking about killing you before you were born?

          • ‘Tis a powerful question. And it deserves an equally powerful answer, wouldn’t you think? [crickets chirping]

            I would ask this, ’twere it but possible: that they consent to holding the tiny, lifeless form in both hands, and to pronounce that it was something other than a recently-deceased human being.

      • So Hannibal, I gave examples of The statist elitists ie liberal/progressive proven track record of mass death and government tyranny; their rabid desire to take our ability to defeat tyranny and mass slaughter by taking away our second amendment rights.
        So give some examples of those that defend our personal liberty and the right to keep and bear arms supporting the mass slaughter of those that disagree with us.

      • Hannibal, I think you’re on the wrong forum. Try NAMBLA. I think you’ll find it more to your liking.

      • Libertarians are even now plotting to take over the world so they can…leave you alone? Wait, that doesn’t quite work…

    • Yup.

      Ralph knows of what he speaks, folks. I will back him to the hilt on the “culture war” issue. The left’s culture warriors would be beside themselves with glee if they could order the military to simply kill us all. Cleanly, of course. These are the type of people that don’t want to see messy things on their evening news.

      • In early stages, they might even be willing to let you leave the country. As long as you leave all your money behind.

  6. Boy, that’s almost as bad as firing someone for writing a piece about the second amendment that doesn’t mirror the views of its most vocal advocates.

    • If your actual job is writing articles to increase membership in a magazine, then writing an article designed to drive away readership isn’t a good idea.

      If an editor for a women’s magazine wrote an article saying that women are partially responsible for getting raped if they engage in certain activities, such as getting drunk with strangers, I’d expect that editor to be fired, not because there article itself was controversial or couldn’t prod people into thinking about the subject in a different manner, but because it goes greatly against the mission statement of the magazine and its readership, thus that editor does not belong there.

    • Sir, I generally try to assume that a person making a comment here, no matter how apparently illogical, is an honest seeker, and may actually have a point I have not realized. You are making it difficult. There is an obvious fundamental difference between banning someone from the conversation, and saying that we will not pay to support a position we find reprehensible. If you literally cannot see that difference, then I weep for the people of this country.

    • Not quite the same thing, although I can see how you’re confused. G&A is a for-profit business, not a for-attention movement. When multiple major clients call up and say they’ll pull ads rather than endure boycotts of their products for supporting those ideas, that’s a lifeblood business decision to be made and G&A, well, decided, in favor of the profitable route. That’s exactly aligned with their purpose.

      This reddit site, however, allegedly exists as a vehicle for free speech on reader-defined important stories and discussions. This little subreddit moderator, however, stifles speech by fiat and unilaterally banishes opposing views and their purveyors. Sounds mighty contrary to that site’s stated purpose.

      • Riiight… “It’s not censorship because we’re not calling it censorship.”

        Some of you deserve a gold medal for the mental gymnastics you go through to try and justify the hypocrisy of shutting up someone you don’t agree with while pillorying the other side for doing the same thing. We’re not talking the legality of censorship here, it’s the inability to even consider other views.

        • Okay, so we silence everyone who disagrees with us or makes a point we don’t like, and yet neither you or anyone else making that same argument over and over again has been banned. Do explain this.

        • Principled condemnation isn’t censorship. Metcalf is free to buy or start his own publication and write whatever he may wish. He can even come here to this site and exchange views. He’s hasn’t expressed an interest in either option so far.

        • Oh, Hannibal… You see, if Dick Metcalf had written his commentary for the Huffington Post, the People of the Gun would have thought – “what a Dick!” – and gone about our days. But you see, he did it on the back page of Guns and Ammo, a magazine that has prided itself for, oh, about the past 40 years as a key voice in the gun rights movement. Do you really not see the difference?

          We do not censor his statement because we didn’t like it, but for his betrayal of the very serious fight to protect the Second Amendment and our rights to self protection with it. Making a common Brady Campaign argument within the context of G&A is simply unforgivable. Sorry you don’t see the difference.

          • Plus the fact that, at least for me, it would kinda behoove me to write stuff that doesn’t trash the guy who signs my paycheck.

            • “Behoove”. It always sounds as if it should mean, “to put hooves upon”. Scary. Sulphur odors.

        • No, it’s not censorship because the people doing the complaining – ie the G&A readership – don’t have the authority to fire, suspend, or otherwise censure the author in question. Nor do they have power to block publication in the first place. In point of fact, the editorial *was* published. This is dealing with the aftermath.

          They do have the power to cancel their subscriptions and many apparently have. Also, the companies who advertise in its pages have a choice as to whether they wish to be associated with the magazine.

          The G&A management team have made a business decision to try to retain asany readers and advertisers as they can. Neither the readers nor the advertisers have the authority to do that.

  8. And yall expected anything less than vile hatred from hoplophobes?? We’ve known all along they don’t want to talk, they feel they are superior to us in every way and, since they are, they automatically have no responsibility to hear us out.

      • Apparently, Sen Mitch McConnell (RINO, KY) thinks that way. Silence those who won’t let him support the liberal/progressive/leftist agenda of the Democrats within his own party: boycott all who support, do business with, or agree with the Senate Conservative Fund and the Tea Party. Silence them and remove their opposition. His view and apparently no longer hidden behind mouthpieces and minions.

        Kentuckians need to finally boot the guy who totally knows how unhappy they are with him, and doesn’t care. (My vote doesn’t count because I’m not a resident of or legal voter in Kentucky.)

        • Not a resident: I call another State home… Happily it is not CA, HI, CO, IL, NY, NJ, MA, or DC. Although I do wish them well in the return of their rights and the removal of said leftist/liberal/progressive commies from office.

    • See this is the problem, Metcalf, and people like him, are all under the impression that their right to free speech is without consequences. You’re free to say anything you want, and he did. No one stopped him from saying what he said, but there are always consequences for your words. The consequence for his option was his job. Not jail, or a fine. He’s still free, free to repeat, rephrase and not apologize. And thus, the reaction of him employers was perfectly within their right to do so.

      You see how that works? Individual responsibility? You can say what you want but your words have meaning. What they mean to whom is never predictable. But just because we have the 1st amendment doesn’t mean your protected from the consequences of what you say.

  10. This is how the whole democratic party and liberals see free speech. The only speech that is allowed is what they agree with. Same goes for their views on firearms.

    • Liberals are “pro-choice”, on any issue, only so long as they get to do the choosing for others.

    • The statist/fascist education system (essentially completely dominated by leftist thinking) that exists in this country from K-Grad is an example of how our entire country will look like if the leftists got full control of the reins of this country. If you want to see what kind of hellish/double-think country we would be subjected to you only have to look at the crazy world of the leftist campus.

  11. If they will be authoritarian in the little things, how much worse will they be about the big things once our guns have been taken away?

  12. A dead forum with very few members and draconian rules is a lousy example. An active forum that is sponsored by a national political advocacy group is a much better indicator of what the anti-gun community will/won’t tolerate. By the same token, TTAG is a much better example of the 2A community than a little used, anonymous forum, wouldn’t you agree?

  13. I love debate. I think there are a lot of conversations that should be had, rather than ignored. But, as an example, I remember trying to talk with a female friend about gender equality, to which I was answered with, “You don’t understand! You’re just a man!” Which, in case you didn’t notice, is the exact opposite of debate and discussion.

    I don’t mind talking about race issues, either, as someone who has had their life threatened based on their skin color. Yes, I am white. Let’s talk about why that matters. Let’s not dismiss my life experiences because there was an article on CNN the other day that said my race and gender mean I’m rich and other rich people go out of there way to make me richer. Ive actually been told I’m too poor for food stamps. There’s a handout for you.

    Dissent is an important part of discourse. If you’re not ready to handle a differing opinion, you’re not looking for a discussion. You’re looking to validate yourself in an insanely shallow way that involves you not having to do any thinking or move your stance.

    • Ooh, that one’s a serious hot button for me. I’m white, male, blond-haired, [nominally] Christian, conservative, heterosexual, and a native Southerner. If I were also rich, then I would be every single adjective that left-wing groupthink says is okay to hate, so I get the “You couldn’t possibly understand!” card pulled on me a lot.

      It pisses me off not so much because it’s their weapon for ending debate; we’re all used to them pulling any trick to avoid defending their ideas anyhow. Rather, it pisses me off because it makes the assumption that the adjectives used to describe me somehow prevent me from having empathy. That despite the ad nauseum assurances I heard growing up that we’re all the same inside, I’m somehow incapable of showing compassion or relating to the experiences of others, and on a genetic level, to boot. And yeah, I don’t take very kindly to it.

      So when someone tells me that now, I don’t even argue the point anymore. I just let them know that if they want to assume that my various accidents of birth make me incapable of one of the most basic displays of humanity, then f*ck them, and f*ck their struggle, too; I’m apparently not capable of caring anyway, so why should I waste my time?

      • One of my favorite Archer quotes is definitely, “Oh, put it back in the deck.”

        A guy I worked with liked to tell stories about how hard his childhood was and how hard it was to be treated differently because he looked different. Then his parents visited the office one Christmas. Turns out, they lived in the neighborhood he pretended to be from for less than a week, where I actually grew up. Also turned out his dad is mid-high management at GM, and actually the boss of a lot of my family.

        Your race doesn’t tell everyone everywhere everything they need to know about you. And it sure doesn’t preclude you from being able to feel things.

      • Lucas: You’ve eloquently identified yet another gaping hole in leftist logic;

        From their position it’s unacceptable to denigrate any person because of their skin color or gender or make assumptions about them based on these factors because underneath we’re all worthy humans . . .unless you’re talking about a white male, then he’s the problem because he’s a racist, sexist heartless beast with is foot on the neck of everyone who isn’t white and male.

        If it’s possible for white or men to act differently as a result of their genetics then by definition non white and women must be capable of acting different because of theirs. The logical flaw is as pervasive in leftist ideology in the US as it is obvious.

        Of course leftists will attempt any maneuver to avoid honest debate, this is what all people do naturally when you challenge them on a position they cannot support but are unwilling to abandon; obfuscate, condemn, lie, attack ad hominem, develop straw men, anything to avoid exposing that their position has no logical foundation.

        An intelligent and more importantly an honest person examines their positions logically and is open to abandoning previously held positions based on new information. Refusing to do so must have merits and causes and these can be described succinctly as either:

        Delusion: The person is somewhat aware that their position doesn’t fit into reality but cannot abandon it due to mental defect or emotional issues.

        Dishonesty: The person is fully aware that their position doesn’t fit into reality but maintain it for some external reason, such as it gives them power.

        Ignorance: The person isn’t aware that their position doesn’t fit into reality because they do not have enough information to have such awareness or they have not examined the position in light of the available information. Once the information becomes available, to continue to maintain the position beyond this indicates at least one of the two factors are in play. Often this is dishonesty due to fear of humiliation for admitting previous ignorance or else to maintain social status and relationships based on the flawed position.

        These patterns hold true not just with leftists but with anyone who holds a position that is illogical or counter to reality. I developed the formula for something completely unrelated to gun rights or politics and it’s titled well, it starts with my real name (NAME’s axiom) and I don’t wish to use it here but it proposes that anyone with illogical beliefs must either be insane, dishonest or ignorant. Ergo, to change such a persons position via logic is impossible, one instead must address the underlying issue.

        I’ve previously posted a specified version of this axiom as “Ardent’s Axiom” at TTAG. However the axiom can be used to determine the cause of any illogical position anyone might hold and suggest how to bring them back to a logical position.

    • I read somewhere that when someone says, “You don’t understand! You’re just a [whatever]!” the most useful/helpful response is, “Well, then, teach me. Make me understand.”

  14. To be honest, I’ve been banned from a couple of gun forums for stepping out of line and posting up crazy things like “why did so-and-so get banned?” or “personally I like the 9mm cartridge”. I’ve made far more controversial comments here and the fact I can still post is why I frequent this site. The internet is full of “moderators” on power trips.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXvqYYJSv3I

  15. The best example I can think of to relate these people to is theirs and Obamas socialist anti-freedom god Hitler. These people are logic Nazis. Speak against them? Nein! They ban you.

    • Don’t ever point out that Hitler was a vegetarian Catholic Socialist. Lest we forget, he invented atheism and right wing politics. /sarcasm

        • As far as Catholic? Not so sure considering how superstitious he was and how much “the occult” had a huge impact on his weapons of war, his strategies, and actions.

        • NAZI means National Socialist Workers Party in German.

          It wasn’t just a slogan, while members who more actively pushed the Socialism aspect, such as the Strasser brothers were killed or purged, that was more to appease capitalist interests so Hitler could obtain power.

          Once he had power, it’s hard to find much difference in actual State functioning between Stalin and Hitler? Both had State ownership of large segments of production.

          Remember, the SS ran a huge number of labor camps, it’s hard to have more control over the means of production than owning the people and working them literally to death.

        • Actually, Hitler WAS a socialist; “nazi” is the shortened version of the”National Socialist German Workers Party.” It was liberals that labeled Hitler as being “far right” and a fascist, even though Fascism and Nazi socialism have very little in common. The fact is that the Nazis endorsed socialized medicine, income equality (for other Nazis), a powerful central government and control of public dissent (sound familiar? For context, see the executive order making it illegal to protest the government within hearing of the Secret Service…)

          A little bit of self-motivated research clears up a lot of these misunderstandings, but we keep getting back to the fact that liberals can’t stomach anything that contradicts their narrative.

        • One, Hitler hated the fact that Socialist was part of the name, not to mention that having it in the name doesn’t make him one.

          You’re literally trying to rewrite historical fact. Hitler was a right wing fascist. Fact. From his mouth:

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism

          “In 1930, Hitler said: “Our adopted term ‘Socialist’ has nothing to do with Marxist Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not.”[143] In 1942, Hitler privately said: “I absolutely insist on protecting private property … we must encourage private initiative”.[144]”

          Also:

          “The Nazis claimed that communism was dangerous to the well-being of nations because of its intention to dissolve private property, its support of class conflict, its aggression against the middle class, its hostility towards small businessmen, and its atheism.[139] Nazism rejected class conflict-based socialism and economic egalitarianism, favouring instead a stratified economy with social classes based on merit and talent, retaining private property, and the creation of national solidarity that transcends class distinction.[140]”

          “During the 1920s, Hitler urged disparate Nazi factions to unite in opposition to “Jewish Marxism”.[141] Hitler asserted that the “three vices” of “Jewish Marxism” were democracy, pacifism and internationalism.[142]”

          This is just looking at Wikipedia, you can find a lot more evidence everywhere. Trying to make Hitler a leftist is like trying to say the Founding Fathers were all die hard Christians. It’s just not true.

        • Really opened a can of worms on that one, didn’t I? Like it or not, and it is most certainly NOT rewriting history, Hitler’s Nazism was socialist. One thing I’m noticing here is that people don’t realize that Communism, Socialism, and Marxism are not synonymous. Oh, and by the way, Fascism is not right wing extremism, it’s the political party of Mussolini. Which was an offshoot of, wait for it, the Italian Socialist Party.

        • Nated

          Translated: “I really don’t trust that Stalin guy, and I don’t want my people looking to him, so I’m making it very clear that I call MY socialism something different. Oh, and the masses eat up the idea of keeping what they have, plus, I don’t want anyone demanding that my SUPPORTERS give up their stuff, so I better put a caveat in, without telling them it doesn’t apply to them.”

          Sound familiar?

          • I think it’s taken about five years for the Godwin effect to finally show up. For five years I’ve been wondering if I’m the only one who sees through the emperor’s new invisible clothes? Does “Why didn’t somebody do something before he got so powerful?” sound familiar?

        • Well, Hitler’s political party was the National Socialists… Just sayin’. Maybe he thought he was a socialist, cause he sure used the title freely.

          • He was managing perceptions. Ahead of his time? Nah, not really, but stylistically, maybe so. That might not have been possible before the advent of film.

        • How can you tell if someone is a Vegan? Don’t waste your time. They’ll tell you before you even wonder.

          • I like to get under their skin a little. Not vegetarians; I have no commitment, but I sometimes go days without eating meat. No, vegans: “You wanna egg? No? Superb cholesterol! You do know the human brain is mostly cholesterol, doncha? Where else you gonna get cholesterol like THIS for your brain?”
            It’s true, it really is. We should all probably be eating a half-dozen egg yolks a day, at least.

    • I suggest that is true for whoever has power – let’s not forget that just 10 or 11 years ago if you did not openly support the US invasion of Iraq you were publicly branded as a “traitor” by the Vice President and other members of the Cabinet. Not sure any of them qualify as liberals, socialists, etc.

  16. Everyone, if you want to scream at a real insane anti-gun nutjob, go to “TakeAimOnTheNRA” on Facebook. They outright lie and mislead everyone, and banned me two different times for telling the truth.

    Seriously. It’s fun.

  17. I should also add, gun forums are just as bad. I’ve been banned from a few for not agreeing with their political views, and not in a trolling way either (although I was called a troll) but it didn’t matter.

    People on the internet don’t want to hear ANYTHING that doesn’t reinforce their distorted, insane beliefs. It’s disgusting.

      • “Well. NOBODY gets called a troll here.”

        Of course not. An armed forum is a polite forum. ;-D

    • People gathered to share on an interest group or affiliation site don’t want to hear your ‘views.’ They are, at best, open to reasoned opinion backed by evidence, credible statistics, some causality function. People naturally seek to bring what they know or believe into a narrative, a story they tell themselves. This is work. Once they have a narrative, you need to raise non-trivial data if you expect them to revise their narrative. The problem with the anti sites is that the basis of the narrative is never revealed. Even asking for it is taboo. The tribal shibboleth is this, that if you have to ask for the basis of the narrative, you don’t believe the narrative, so you are not ‘us.’ And this works, because they live in cloistered worlds of academic or government or NGO/NP rainbows, generally paid for by taxes collected on penalty of jail, at gunpoint. That is the only positive use they see for guns. This goes for the medical establishment, too, once they started to live on extorted redistributional taxes, while hiring experts to avoid the taxes themselves.

  18. I try to look at both sides of issues, I try to be civil in my discourse, I try to defend my positions with facts, experience, etc, etc. Hell, I even respect others opinions even if I don’t agree with them. I simply can’t understand why the anti crowd acts the way they do. Ya don’t like guns? Fine. Don’t own them, buy them, shoot them, whatever. But don’t act like a douche and tell me I have a small penis, I’m retarded, and I’m a pedophile ’cause I like guns. These people aren’t just mental, they are borderline bat shit crazy. Anyone willing or trying to suppress others opinions and thoughts are dangerous. People like that make the argument as to why guns are necessary.

  19. We have 2 separate but related issues. On the one hand we have people who are drunk on whatever real or imagined power they might have. On the other, we have people who have a fundamental problem with authority, independent of any rational basis.

    Ex. 1: “Police are nothing but jackbooted fascist thugs! How dare they tell me I can’t drive 110 in a 45 zone! There are murderers and rapists at large, and they are harassing ME!” …. “Woman, you will obey me and respect me! The Husband is the Head of the Wife and the Ruler of the Home. I make the decisions.”

    Ex. 2: “Rich business owners are just worthless parisites and thieves! They get fat off the sweat of the poor, and grind them into the ground! They need to pay their fair share!” “What!! How dare that person disagree with me in a comment on my blog! I’m going to ban them, and then I’m going to ridicule them, and make them look stupid, and do my best to ruin their life!”

    • I think we can all agree that parasitic jackbooted rich anti-authoritarian women police business owners are scvmbags. Every. Single. One.

    • “We have 2 separate but related issues. On the one hand we have people who are drunk on whatever real or imagined power they might have. On the other, we have people who have a fundamental problem with authority, independent of any rational basis.”

      <quote>
      “The spectrum of the Spirit Polarity goes from Lucifer on the extreme left to Ahriman on the extreme right, with your spirit and my loving Light, of course, in the center. Lucifer is warm, earthy, sweet and sexual, and often mean, brutish and demanding. Ahriman is cool, mental, astringent and rational, and quite detached and judgmental.

      “While Lucifer is sly, Ahriman is clever, and they both hate Free Will, but for different reasons. In a face to face battle, Ahriman will always outwit Lucifer, and yet Lucifer will sometimes win with sheer force of ill intent and ‘dirty tricks’.”
      </quote>
      — http://www.godchannel.com/redemption.html

  20. A ‘conversation’ that is 1-sided is called a lecture. A forum is actually a place for equals to exchange ideas and debate. Places like you describe sound like a pulpit to put themselves in front of and over others.

  21. I actually happy that the anti-self defense/anti-Second Amendment forum want to live in a bubble. Why do you think that Bloomberg threw away so much money in Colorado and Virginia to so little effect? [Yes, McAuliffe won but he can’t do anything to implement Bloomberg’s agenda] The antis are clueless about what the general population thinks about guns because they won’t even listen to their opponents to find out what we are arguing. You can’t be effective in a debate if don’t know what your opponent are saying.

    By the way I recall a number of people wanting ban our dear friend Mike Bonomo.

    • Mike Bonomo was different, and in this way: He trolled. He would make spurious arguments, then go away. He was looking for links. And, since you asked, I have a problem with any anti-gun blogger who lost his right to own guns in the US years ago. Ask him. He’ll just change the subject or say “how is that relevant?”

  22. not only will they ban you from the subreddit if you post something they find distasteful, the reddit site admins shadowbanned a paid (gold) 2+ year old account with high karma because I argued with the antigunners too enthusiastically.

    so, poke at the trolls if you like, but don’t do it from an account you care about.

  23. “But one of the biggest reasons is that they don’t accept any criticism or opposition to their position.”

    Here’s what bothers me about TTAG and RF’s diatribe about the recent G&A debacle: a). It’s hypocritical to bitch about anti’s using the same tactics we use (is there really a difference between calling for someone to be fired because WE don’t like what he wrote and deleting/banning comments THEY don’t want to hear… Either way the result is same), and b). RF seems to take every opportunity he can to slam “dead tree publications”. Yeah….. No conflict of interest there. Anyone who disagrees must have one hell of a good pop up blocker.

      • “I totally do have a good one”

        Try some Cornhusker’s Lotion, and next time, keep it to yourself.

    • I am astounded by comments equating criticism of Metcalf with the banning of comments on blogs. It is not a small incidental matter for a writer in a firearms periodical to appear ignorant of the main holdings in Heller, but a remarkable and large error. In legal and liberty terms, equating Metcalf’s 2A view on “well regulated” to the Supreme Courts actual exegesis, supported by fully articulated historical assessments, is like a NYT writer pronouncing on civil rights, using the Dred Scott views as a support, rather than Brown v Board of Education.

      Why hasn’t Metcalf posted here?

    • What happened to Metcalf? I though he wrote an article premised on an interpretation of law which appeared oblivious to Heller, while pissing off the advertisers who ultimately pay his salary. Is that wrong? Most magazines fire writers they think merely might have pissed off their advertisers. NYT? Same thing. Business is business. Metcalf is welcome to post here, I assume. I would even hazard to say that he knows this to be true.

  26. In regards to Nicks reference about Newtown, I didn’t give much thought to guns before Last December. Sure, my brother has a dozen (or more) kick butt handguns and rifles, but they were just…things. Cool yes, but because they were mechanically cool, like the manual shifter on an E-type Jag (which he also owns, bastard!).

    Then I spent countless nights, doing research into gun laws, gun violence, mental health, etc. I am a problem solver by nature, and with 2 young kids, there HAD to be some answer, or answers, to guns and violence. It seriously kept me up all hours.

    But the more I looked, the more I sought for a silver bullet to make ” everyone safe” from gun violence, the more I learned that you can’t change human nature. There will always be criminals, there will always be the mentally insane, and governments grow if unchecked. That is the world we live in. It sucks, but short of changing millennia of humanity in an instant, its what we got. Hence, the solutions are obvious to any rational thinker.

    I still keep an open mind. I read NBC and Fox, one after another, in an attempt to see both sides, or at least 2 different focuses. I will read posts by csgv, looking for any truths or nuggets of wisdom that might come up. I will question every political post that this site (TTAG) publishes, looking for unsupported propaganda and lies. I take nothing at face value, and I question everything.

    So its been a year, almost. Where am I now? I believe in freedom and liberty, more than I ever did. I believe an individual, looking out for his family and neighbors, will provide more help and support than any far-away nameless government can (armed forces and reasonable national security bureaus not included.). And I bought my first gun at age 41 (xds9). Not because its “cool”, or because I live in a dangerous neighborhood, or because I’m paranoid someone is out to get me. I did it because I can. To protect my family, if needed, but mostly because as a free human on this brief fragile earth, I live in a country that still (begrudgingly) allows me to PERSONALLY PROTECT my life liberty and happiness. That is a wonderful right…and I will protect it and fight for it until the blood ceases to run through my veins.

    • What a rational perspective. I especially agree with the family responsibility for rendering safe and getting into treatment loved ones with serious mental illness. Remove drug-related gang shootings and we’re actually quite a safe nation with, still, as much liberty as individuals are willing to preserve, nurture, and defend.

      • “drug-related gang shooting”

        Correction: drug WAR related shooting. If there were no war on drugs, drugs as a problem would disappear from the radar.

        Even Organized Crime – heck, all they want to do is provide a product to their customers. The fact that government authoritarians on power trips want to dictate what people aren’t allowed to do is the only reason there is such a thing as “organized crime.” Do convenience stores have turf wars over cigarettes?

          • Again, it’s the war itself that’s the problem. Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man don’t have turf wars. There are no shady characters lurking around school yards offering kids a taste of Jim Beam.

        • Laugh. We’re all talking about the same thing. No, the gas-and-goes aren’t fighting turf wars. They’re fighting capital funding wars in order to buy each other and reduce competition.

  28. There are many liberals that own guns. They assume that any gun control measures put in place will exclude them. After all, they are the “good” guys. They either haven’t read history, lived history, or understood history. They don’t want debate, they want to share their ill-conceived outrage when they wake-up one morning and discover evil exists.

  29. Well, they’re kinda onto something about The Blaze, but it’s really the headline writers who kill any potential credibility.

    • I am SO glad I don’t know what either of you is talking about. SO glad. I’m glad, I’m glad, I’m glad.

  31. The same elected officials that push gun bans (Feinstein Schumer Durbin) are also proposing legislation that defines who is a journalist. If it became law, that would empower government to intimidate and silence citizen journalism. It would also give government the means to shut down opposition websites.

    • To say nothing of the fact that DiFi (who sits on the senate intelligence committee) has proposed “amendments” to the national security act that, rather than reforming or limiting the power of the NSA, in many ways legalize the practices that have brought them into such controversy and disrepute. She is becoming alarmingly tyrannical in her doterage.

  32. So in this post, we grumble about antis lack of respect for the 1st Amendment by stifling opposing opinions. A few posts down, we laugh at G&A’s former editor for making the exact same argument.

    Either the 1A only applies to gov action and you can’t complain when private publications don’t like your speech, or it’s an underlying principle of what it means to be an American and should be respected regardless of the fact it can’t be legally enforced against private persons.

    Pick one. I promise I won’t bite your head off whether I agree with you or not. 🙂

    • To respect someone’s right of free speech is fine. It’s enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

      However, Metcalf used his forum – for which he received a salary, mind you; this was no “open exchange of ideas”, but a diatribe in which he used HIS First Amendment rights to advocate the limiting of OTHERS’ Second Amendment rights.

      Let’s just say that that’s okay. It isn’t, but let’s say it is. But the Second Amendment supporters objected to this unchallenged opinion. They challenged it. They demanded he be fired. And he was fired.

      Now, mind you, the People of the Gun did NOT fire Metcalf; that is not in their power. They exerted PRESSURE on the editorial department and ownership to do so. Pressure perceived; economic damage calculated, measures taken to prevent economic damage.

      Not one of the People of the Gun acted to limit Metcalf’s Freedom of Speech; he is still free to express it elsewhere. Just so long as it is not at GUNS & AMMO.

      Now tell us again that you don’t understand, because I know DAMN well you DO understand.

    • We don’t criticize Metcalf’s 1st Amendment views. We revile him for ignoring contemporary 2nd Amendment jurisprudence, and wonder at his inclination to bite the hand that feeds his vocation. We don’t malign anti-gun blogs and left-wing blogs for excluding other views from the comments, but rather for pretending that they do otherwise. We do not wonder what the November outcome of Jarrett’s weekly White House anti-gun round-table will lead to, but rather expect it to be more of the same, planned on the same taxpayer dimes that could as well be wasted in other ways. She can’t fix Chicago. She can’t fix the dilapidation of Chicago housing projects, though she’s taken much pay to ‘manage’ them. And yet she has time to tell, but only indirectly, the rest of America how to live, and to direct her willing minions to work their magic on the web. She has no better love of the Constitution than Metcalf. They should both post here if they have a view. We don’t need the indirection and subterfuge of the Sunstein apostles. Direct speech would be more credible.

      • I’m making a philosophical point here. I respect the First Amendment, and as part of that I try to dialogue with people, learn their perspective, what they believe, why they believe it. That doesn’t mean I agree with them, or that I don’t try to show them my POV too. It’s how you interact with people, and a friend is much more likely to convince another friend than some random stranger. (it’s my “secret” to turning antis to pros. ;))

        When people spew BS, I call them on their BS. I attack their facts, their logic, their reasoning. I don’t attack the person (ad hominem, anyone?), and I don’t attack their exercise of their rights. Ruining the careers of anyone who ever says anything you disagree with doesn’t help the cause; it makes us look like loons. Frankly, I believe we’re right…and that’s why I’m not afraid of dissent. “The truth will out”, or whatever the Brits say. I welcome the dissent, because it keeps us thinking, keeps us fresh, and keeps us engaging.

        Yeah, obviously, getting fired isn’t being arrested for your speech. But the looming threat–say anything but Pure Gun Rights Doctrine or we’ll ruin your career–is nothing short of shameful. If the Bradys et al started a shame campaign where they find people who (open carry, conceal carry, have a DGU, take your pick) and merely “exerted PRESSURE on” (to quote the commenter above you) their landlords or employers to evict/fire those people, we would FLIP OUT. Rightfully so! And we wouldn’t listen to any of them tell us “we didn’t fire him, we just exerted PRESSURE on his boss to fire him” like the commenter above you.

        And for whatever it’s worth, you’re incorrect. Current jurisprudence definitely agrees that regulation does not equal infringement. Agree, disagree, fence sit, that’s your call, but your statement was incorrect.

        It’s like you said…we don’t malign anti groups for censoring their facebook pages or blogs or forums because we think they have no right to. We understand they have the *right* to, but we malign them for pretending like they want a “conversation” then stifling all opposing opinions. I’m doing the same thing; if this site is about exploring “The Truth About Guns”, y’all should support exploration of the truth. If we’re right–and I think we are–we have nothing to fear from that honest exploration, nor the variety of viewpoints under the pro-gun tent.

        Or I guess we could just call them heretics and get them fired.

    • He has a right to say whatever he wants.
      He doesn’t have a “right” to get paid to say whatever he wants.

    • I know this has already been stated, over and over again, but it is NOT the same thing. It requires very little thought to note that NO ONE has restricted Metcalf’s right to speak. He is free to go write anything he wants, any where he wants, to anybody he wants. But he has no right to FORCE his opinions on his readers. If he believes that, we have every right to cancel our subscriptions, or to not buy the magazine.
      THAT is what got him fired, the cancellations by subscribers, not the outcry. If the controversy had MADE money for Guns & Ammo he would still be there. But he isn’t, because it cost them money. This has nothing to do with rights. Remember, he is a paid author, not just some guy. Being paid means he must make money for his employer(s), or hit the road and look for a new job. It is ever thus, in any job. if your personal opinions cost your bosses money, you will be fired. Period. That’s just the way it is. He is still free to express his opinion all day long, but he will have to do it for an anti-gun publication. We also have the right to vote with our dollars, and refuse to support idiots and fools.
      He has the right to speak, but we also have the right not to listen. There is a right to freely speak our minds, but there is no right to be HEARD. The audience has the right to ignore you, if they think your freely expressed opinions are stupid. And we ALSO, have the right speak freely about how stupid we might find you to be
      Like all rights, they are for EVERYBODY, and not just the select few!

      • “I know this has already been stated, over and over again, but it is NOT the same thing. It requires very little thought to note that NO ONE has restricted Metcalf’s right to speak. He is free to go write anything he wants, any where he wants, to anybody he wants.”

        At that point, I’d leave “force” out of it.

        He has a right to say whatever he wants, but he doesn’t have a “right” to get paid to trash the one who’s paying him.

        If I pay you a salary to blow my horn in a magazine, and you use my magazine to call me names, I’ll fire your worthless arse. That’s how simple it is.

  33. I hate to see it from either side of any debate, but both sides are guilty of this behavior in some form or fashion, and in varying degrees.

    The difference is that it happens a lot less on the pro-rights side than the anti-rights side. A lot less. Like, a whole helluva lot less, actually.

    Even so, I still like to think that even those agit-prop progenitors represent only a relative minority of the other side, albeit a comparatively much larger percentage than is found in our camp. In my experience, a lot of gun control advocates are such out of ignorance. Ignorance is curable, though, through education. So, it’s not the end of the world for either party.

    But the vehement willful ignorance comes from the die-hard disarmament lobby that, while still a lunatic fringe, still has more resources in time and money and people and even political influence than we do. (What’s funny is that even with all of that going for them, and they’re not afraid to climb onto the corpses of their victims to use it, it’s usually only in areas that they’ve already entrenched themselves that they are able to make any headway. Usually.) That is the particular segment of the anti’s that I reserve my harshest words and plainest observations for.

    I’ve also experienced their willingness (or should I say complete and total lack thereof) to have an “open and honest discussion” first-hand on Facebook and YouTube. You’re right. Even amongst their own members, few and far between though they are, they instantly get the boot with even so much as a “bon voyage” for slipping even so much as a hair out of line with their Dear Leaders. It’s literally a cult mentally with these people in particular, and they don’t care where the dissent came from. Their little “bubbles” in cyberspace are their personal castle keep, and they will not tolerate any challenges to their absolute authority; from without or without. Like any dictator, like any Fuehrer, for them every night of “The Night of The Long Knives”.

    Ironically, they like to call us closed-minded and malign us for being narrow-focused. Not to mention all the name-calling they do that they inevitably blame on us, and what-not. Oh, and those cute little death threats that they know they’ll never fulfill (nor could they ever afford anybody good enough to do so, or afford to hire enough of them for that matter even if they could find them). One need only look to our own agit-prop trope namers, like MikeB, to see hypocrisy incarnate.

    • Oh my god. PLEASE. All it takes is a mention of his name, and he returns from the dead. Can you refrain in the future?

      • It wouldn’t matter if he ever darkened these comments again. It is his right to, so long as he isn’t banned anyway, even if literally all of his opinions on the matters typically discussed here (and everything he knows about them) are flat-out wrong on every conceivable level.

        It doesn’t take much to drive him back into the abyss there at the bottom of the food chain anyway. Just bring up his modus operendi (which inevitably brought about his expatriation to Italy after the permanent loss of his RKBA). That will take care of the rest 😉

    • 100% unadulterated truth. These people have REALLY violent fantasies. They DANGEROUS when combined with power. cf: Cass Sunnstein.

  36. The NAZI’s were left wing marxist kooks and these new leftist progressive NAZI’s predictably act just like those NAZI’s.

  37. They don’t allow disagreement because they are arguing on bad faith.

    They want to act like they are for gun control to reduce violent crime and mass shootings. Except they know it can be quite easily demonstrated that gun control does not reduce violent crime or mass shootings.

    They want more gun control because they don’t like guns and the people who own guns, this “hardcore group of fanatical NRA backed rural gun owners”. And it doesn’t matter to them those people commit very little violent crime or mass shootings, because that’s not the real issue.

  38. Kind of like nyfirearms.com policy of if you even slightly talk bad about a cop (even if its talking bad about them enforcing the unconstitutional safe act), you get banned because that site puts them on a pedestal. However, any cop acts like an elitist prick, downgrading anyone (military included in anyone), nothing happens to them. Same with Longislandfireams “LEO forum only” that you need a password for.

    They’re all full of shit hypocrites.

  39. You know, that picture strikes me as speaking more eloquently to your point than I ever could. It really is worth a thousand words.

  40. The President should use an executive order to ban and confiscate all projectile weapons in America. That way we’d all be safe.

    • Just wanted to do my monthly 1A test.

      Most gun control sites are heavily moderated, and the inverse of that comment (“The US government should distribute all law-enforcement seized weapons to law-abiding citizens in areas with higher than average violent crime” or some such) wouldn’t make it to the forum. If it did, it wouldn’t be up for long.

      I actually just wrote about my virgin experience with the pro-censorship crowd that runs the Moms Demand Action Facebook page. My comments (not troll-posts or unreasonably inflammatory stuff) were yanked within 5 minutes of posting.

    • “confiscate all projectile weapons in America. That way we’d all be safe.”

      From the cops and the Secret Service and rich liberals’ bodyguards too?

    • While it is true that almost everybody today “thinks” with their amygdala, it is not true that the lizard brain can think. It only understands 4 things: Fight, Flight, Eat, and Mate. Much like a lizard, as it is the only brain they have.
      One can distill the whole thing down to one point. The person must be enticed into thinking(with the higher mammalian brain), rather than just reacting. The way to do this is to just pick ONE POINT and ask VERY simple questions about it , over and over, until one gets a reaction. If they have to answer a question, they will have to THINK, and that means the amygdala must relinquish control of that individual. If you do this properly you will notice the change come over them as they begin to think, instead of just parrot what they have been told.
      Be aware, this is simple, but not easy. The person’s amygdala does NOT want to give up control, and will often fight viciously, ignoring all questions as if nonexistent. And if that fails, will generally retreat and ignore all further interaction. This is the fight/flight response in action.
      The best success will be achieved by sneaking up behind(so to speak) the amygdala and asking what seems like innocent, harmless questions about something unrelated to the point he is trying to defend. But it must be something that will require thought, so the amygdala will relinquish control to the higher cognitive functions. THEN the conversation can be subtly steered back to logical questions about the issue at hand, because the higher brain functions are active now. But be careful not to be confrontational, or the amygdala will come right back again.

      • Good explanation, Ken. I’m not sure the “lizard brain” and the Amygdala are 100% the same thing, because the “lizard brain” is kind of a pop culture concept, but it the analogy works very well for the purposes of that your are explaining.

        • I really don’t believe that they are exactly the same either, but they occupy the same position and seem to do apx. the same job, so as you stated, its good enough for this purpose.
          I happen to think its also where emotions, and all their power come from, and also where the “6th sense” that people often demonstrate comes from, but that’s all conjecture. So its a very valuable part of us, but still a poor thing to try to reason with. Its for reactions and emotions, not for reasoning and logic. But many today are locked into it at all times, and their cognitive functions grind to a halt from disuse. Real sad. Its easy to tell who is who. People locked into their amygdalas will be emotional about everything, at all times, and utterly reject all logic and reason. Like it doesn’t even exist. Because, for the amygdala, logic and reason doesn’t exist. You might just as well speak in Greek to this type. Unless you can get them to think. Then the cognitive HAS to activate.
          BTW, thanks. Didnt mean to go off again.

          • “I happen to think its also where emotions, and all their power come from, and also where the “6th sense” that people often demonstrate comes from, but that’s all conjecture.”

            Emotions are a part of the sensory system. The Will expresses through the feelings just like the Spirit expresses through the mind. Spirit/mind are electric, and will/emotions are magnetic. We actually have way more than six senses, but they’re denied, disparaged, denigrated, judged against, repressed, etc. I happen to know that people are empathic – everybody has the “sixth sense”; it’s just not recognized because it feels just like your own feeling. I know this is true, because I’ve experienced it myself, and I can’t be all that different or special. There was absolutely no doubt when I opened my Root Chakra. I found God within my own ass. The center of the torus which is my anal sphincter. I looked within so deep that I met myself coming out my own asshole. And I didn’t get there by “faith” – actually, the opposite. I’ve always had very strong skepticism and an insatiable drive to know. Ever since I remember being aware of myself, I’ve wanted to know – “why is everybody so happy all the time while I’m always so miserable?” (turns out they’re mostly faking it.)

            So I embarked on a quest. I did new age, dawning of the Age of Aquarius, drugs, gurus, psychics, books, even tried faith/religion once, whatever resources I could find in hopes of answering the question, “What the F????”

            And it’s all come to a head here: http://www.godchannel.com

            It really is the “Dawning of the Age of Aquarius.” There is a great awakening happening for the first time ever. The Divine Will is recovering from the coma she was knocked into by the original explosion, which scientists (and TV watchers) call the Big Bang. In fact that awakening is probably why TBBT is so amazingly popular.

            There has been a battle between Evil and Free Will since time immemorial, and it has taken all of this long time, but Spirit has finally figured out that Free Will is Right and has been all along.

  42. I was banned by PAGV because they couldn’t defend their position In a debate on Facebook with me. They banned me and deleted all my comments.

    • Sadly, that just seems to be SOP. I’ve seen reasonable debates on this site over all manner of issues, some distinctly firearm specific, others about broader polical and social problems/policies. You’re not going to find that in gun control advocates’ forums. You will find a lot of misandry (hatred of males) and self-loathing Americans (those who feel guilt at being born into a free-market, constitutional Republic).

      • Speaking of misandry, the same can be said about websites with a domestic violence theme. If one posts facts that men and children are victims of dv perpetrated by women then all Hell breaks loose and 99% of the time you will be kicked off, even though these irrefutable facts can be gleaned from government websites.

        • No kidding. I was in a terrible marriage. My (now) ex-wife was actually arrested and convicted of criminal assault against me. And I wasn’t the one who called the cops; it was a neighbor who was tired of seeing her drunk and abusive. Like Marv in Sin City, I could have done more to protect myself, but I don’t hit girls. And I was terrified that a divorce would lead to me losing my clearance and infant daughter. Thankfully, my ex got tangled up lying under oath and narrowly avoided perjury charges. So, I have majority custody of my daughter and her mother lives out of state. Anyway, my story undercuts ‘the narrative’ so I obviously can’t be allowed to share it. And on top of that, I know at least two other guys who’ve had similar experiences.

          • Tons of sympathy here, Sterling: my ex nearly perennially held the vanishing of her and our infant daughter – never to be seen again – as a Sword of Damocles over my head. If you’ve never had it done to you, you might find it hard to appreciate just what that kind of thing can do to one.

            Thankfully, the daughter’s grown and living two doors away, and the ex is much older and much calmer. But complete forgiveness remains an unreached goal.

        • My coworker was abused by his mother growing up. She was just a crazy psycho at home, but played the perfect mother everywhere else. Shit happens all the time, more so than abusive men IMO. I don’t know anyone with an abusive father, they usually just leave the family when they get frustrated.

          Has anyone ever watched the lifetime channel??? I just want to become a raging feminist lesbian after watching that. It’s all about women getting abused, raped, beaten, tortured, all by men. It’s not just like 1 or 2 movies, i’d say 90% of the content is like that. My mom loves the channel, i was forced to watch it growing up because we only had 1 tv.

  43. I don’t see TTAG banning some of the pro-control trolls that make comments here. They don’t need to, because their CNN/NBC brainwashing gets owned by the truth and reality. Instead of select facts just to arouse anger and outrage in an effort to make headlines and sell adds.

    • Great example of this over at:
      http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/11/robert-farago/quote-day-guns-com-backs-metcalf-regulations-infringements/#comment-1368023
      just today by a guy called JoshuaS. He is just full of ridicule, condescension, and big words used improperly, like he uses them based upon length instead of meaning. And nobody has banned him, although he hasn’t bothered to react to all the logic being leveled against him. That is the antis MO, ridicule, insult, posts “facts” that they heard on a cartoon somewhere, and then go away mad when the are shown to be fools. Then go back to their friends and complain about how “unreasonable” those “nuts” are, for not sharing in their fantasyland game. Its really frustrating, but we must leave them to learn from their own mistakes. Fools will be fools, and all that….

  44. Here is the problem!
    These Youngsters are using the platform for Tougher gun Laws and Banning Assault Weapons!The Horrific Crimes that happen because of these weapons are not the Problem! This is the ending result of the Problem!
    It is like a stick of Dynamite! The fuse is lit and it explodes when it reaches a point; the Dynamite! The Youth need to address that it is “BULLYING” each other in the schools that lead to these disasters! Be it the victim of a Bully or a Bully themselves! The victim of Bullying feels that no one will help them! No laws are being enforced on this! So either they take their own Life or the lives of those who are bullied by them along with those who thought it is funny!
    As for the Bully, They are caught and thrown out of the school and have nothing to look forward to and they sit and brew on this until they explode and take revenge on that school!
    So what needs to be done is to address the Beginning of the problem! Stop the wick from ever being lit! Make and enforce Very Tough Laws on “BULLYING” in the schools This way All of these Youths are safe! Those accused of Bullying don’t just throw them out without Having them Examined and Evaluated by Professional Behavior Counselors to see if this person is going to blow up later!
    Assault Weapons have been around Too Long! You cannot just get rid of them! All that will happen is a New Black Market for Assault Weapons will be Created! So leave this subject Alone! Leave alone trying to ban High Capacity Magazines as well! YES! I Agree on Banning “Bump Stocks! That is NOT a Necessity!
    The Problem Starts with these Students in the Schools! Not with Guns! Put this wasted energy on doing something about these Bullies!
    This is the Root of all of these Problems!

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