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If you’re familiar with Shakespearean theater you’ll know what I mean when I say that TTAG’s Facebook page readers are “groundlings.” The conversation over there is more-than-occasionallly less-than-entirely intellectual. Don’t get me wrong. I am not an elitist. I know upon which side our bread is buttered; Facebook delivers a significant portion of our readers here, on the main site, where we get paid. But different “ideas” find traction on Facebook that don’t necessarily comport themselves well here. For example, our FB “Stupid Anti-Gun Comment of the Day” series generates plenty of comments (and a bunch of mendacious memes). The question is: should we run this feature here? I mean, again (courtesy CSGV). Or are we opening ourselves to similar scrutiny, which may reflect badly on the pro-gun cause?

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102 COMMENTS

  2. why freaking bother?? Their crap is the same old rhetoric trumped up over and over and over a thousand different ways the same old crap! That’s all they can use is BS, because the facts are on ourside, gun ownership in this country keeps growing by leaps and bounds, yet crime rates keep dropping by leaps and bounds. they’re very agencies the FBI the Center for Disease Control statistics don’t lie, these are the places that the gun owner are getting their facts from and the facts tell the truth, where they do not

  3. Nah, don’t run it here. I see enough stupid anti-gun comments in the local birdcage liner (aka “Idaho Statesman”) to make me nauseous most days, so I would prefer to keep this site free of such barf-inducing comments.

    • My thought, too. In order to stand out, it would probably have to be something so utterly, abysmally outrageous that it really shouldn’t be printed at all.

    • I disagree. We can’t win the culture war until the world actually realizes that we’re the cultured side of this argument. Highlighting everyday anti-gun bigotry, threats, vitriol and nonsense is vital to the cause.

      • This. We have to expose them for what they really are. All the time. Often as possible.

        Being high-brow never won any wars.

        Ever met a Marine that has no idea how to cuss?

        • True as far as all of this goes, but what most people are missing in this debate is that the only matter is whether we’ve done something the higher levels of anti-gunners could use to post somewhere on their own sites or blogs for political benefit, and this ain’t it. Regular antis, save a couple of trolls, aren’t coming here and don’t care, so if we manage to avoid our own stupid comments, I fail to see how pointing out the other side’s idiocy hurts us.

  6. I doubt there is enough room on the internet for all the suggestions.

    BUT!! RF!! How have you missed the most wonderful ND of the week or whatever, that there has ever been? I mean, a freakin’ TERRORIST, preparing to claim his 72 virgins, loading up his car with loaded guns to kill his neighbors, and he shoots himself in the leg. I thought I was going to DIE, I laughed so hard. He had to call 911 for an ambulance, and I was choking back the tears, rolling on the floor! I just knew you were going to come right up with an award, perhaps unprecedented, for one so stupid in so many ways. But, nothing? What are you thinking?

  7. Maybe just some incredibly stupid ones occasionally. I don’t know if I want to see that filth every day.

  8. If you just start compiling them now, within a few days to a week, you will have enough to give one a day for about 3 years. That will be fairly easy work, but I am game. I can always use a chuckle or two.

  9. My vote is no. There are all ready too many internet venues offering forums for mindless comments. Further, why provide additional exposure to individuals who have written or uttered inane anti-2nd Amendment comments?

  10. It’s a well tread tire, but that elevates it to a level of meta-humor. It’s amusing to listen to variations on old standards. Why not just do it when one strikes you as “extra special”

  11. Maybe avoid looking like a big ol’ meanie? I am not sure what a “trigger” word is, but vapid liberal whiners will probably be “triggered” to cry about what how evil gun owners are if you use a strong word like “stupid.”

    I recommend two features:

    nonsensical/illogical/irrational anti-gun comment of the day (you can do a better job of finding the appropriate word than I)

    and

    violent/threatening/offensive anti-gun comment of the day

    There are a wealth of resources to generate content for both segments. In this way, the vapid and foolish anti-gunners get highlighted and so do the ones who wish death upon us. That is the anti-gunners’ ultimate hypocrisy and it is worthy of its own press every day.

  12. I’d rather preserve the market segmentation. It’s the highbrow (well, upper middlebrow) discussions here that keep me coming back. Start blending the content and a more homogeneous mix of less interesting contributors will follow.

    • I agree. If I want to see stupid shit, I’ll join Facebook.

      I vote no. Not because it’ll reflect badly on the pro-gun cause, but just because I’m not particularly interested in seeing even more anti-gun stupidity here. We already get enough of that crap from the daily coverage of the Demanding Moms and their ilk.

      Yeah, yeah, now somebody will say “know thy enemy”, to which I’ll say, we already know them. They repeat the same three or four tired, repeatedly disproven, emotional “arguments” over and over. Yawn. Let me know when they come up with something new, not just the same old idiotic shit.

  13. A lot of times I’ve heard the retort of, “don’t give the anti’s ammunition for their cause”. It doesn’t matter what we do or say, they’re going to bash us no matter what we do. Why not post their ridiculous rhetoric and at least entertain ourselves? The idea being though, is to get the ignorant people who are unaware of what it is they’re actually doing to see how bad they really are.

    We as gun folks see what they’re doing, they know very well what it is they’re doing, you should find a way to make aware the people who have no idea what’s going on. Winning of hearts and minds, or so I’ve been told.

  14. I might change it to misconceived, misinformed or misguided anti-gun comment of the day when importing it to the main site. As you have already alluded to Facebook is for grabbing attention where the main sight seems more geared towards informing and educating. As accurate as stupid might be (or even cranium in rectum anti-gun comment for that matter) it may not be conductive to opening minds to pro-gun arguements. Facts and logic rarely find their mark with someone who thinks you just called them stupid. It is a great title for a Facebook series though.

  15. Running a blog post about facebook comments on a facebook post that will draw blog comments could cause the intertubez to implode….

  16. I would prefer a “Anti-Gun Lie of the Day.” It should always have a link to the lie (or maybe better a screen shot in case they remove it) along with a link to the truth. I’ve very recently started to make a point to archive them as I come across them.

    • This, combined with the suggestion from crashbear below: “lie of the day told by prominent figure”.

  17. How about only if it was said by a politician/ celeb/ etc. Not just joe schmoes. Every liberal forum will have thousands of nobodies saying dumb things.

    Shoulder thingys and barrel shrouds, assault grips and clips. These should be the focus. Expose those in power for their ignorance.

  18. Hell no. I come hear to learn about and enjoy a passion of mine, not to be bombarded by other people’s idiocy.

  19. No, there is a reason why some stay away from Facebook or YouTube comments. We don’t need them reproduced here, if we want to read them, we all know where to find them.

  20. Looking for stupid on facebook is like searching for turds at a sewage treatment plant. You know you’re going to find it, all you’ll do is come out smelling yourself.

    Now, what would be worthwhile is collating threatening comments. Since pro-gun people are apparently so violent according to MDA, it would be well worth pointing out that their supporters aren’t exactly bastions of kindness and virtue.

  23. Keep a record of it. Particularly the higher up ones. I’d love to have a list of these- but a daily/weekly feature? No. This is a PR game- and we need to be seen to be at a higher level. Because we are.

  24. Drop the “stupid” bit, we have the intelectual, logical and moral highground. Post the hypocritical things and disect them, not the “lol laugh at the dumb person” things

  25. I watch the TTAG page and look at your Facebook comments as well, and I get what you’re saying with ‘groundlings’.

    I don’t mind it on the TTAG page. I don’t figure most do. I think you’re right that it better fits the Facebook format.

    Perhaps it would be better to do it less often to TTAG, as really they seem to generally be repetitive. If they were done away with on the TTAG page, it wouldn’t be a huge loss.

  27. You can not cure stupidity when it come to Treasonous and Seditious comments linked to our Constitution: This is about a group of people wanting more control that the Constitution gives them! Pathetic lives are so bland they have too stroke their Egos by infringement on others rights so they have control and can inflate themselves by saying how grand they are and what they have accomplished, basically Facilitating a Government rule on everything! rights be damned as long as you don’t infringe on mine!

  32. TTAG could run a “Stupid Anti-Gun Comment of the Minute” feature and still run out of space.

  33. I say sure. It’s good to know what your enemies are saying as well as to refute them when they say something egregiously stupid that ends up trending.

  34. Meh. I look at your fakebook page often but rarely comment Defeats the whole anonymous thing. Whatever you do is OK with me. I’ll just skim over it anyway…

    • I say that’s the better option. We don’t need this information everyday. But a weekly post involving the impressively stupid posting would be nice.

    • +1. Certainly over the course of a week we can find at least one real good stinker of a comment.

  36. Yes….but only if you’re goal of the post is too provide facts and articulate why the anti-gun statement is false. Otherwise don’t bother.

  39. Try it on a trial basis, but let’s make it worthwhile. Make it one of their meaningless soundbites, e.g., tiny penis, right to be safe, guns were designed to kill, etc., followed by a good, but short argument to refute their “argument,” because they really do seem to think what they say is meaningful.

  42. I would like an “anti gun article that you can actually post comments on” every morning after quote of the day. Should cover just about everything, and give us restless main pagers some place to go when the gear reviews and ammo quests get too boring.

  45. Had an anti yesterday arguing with me that the 2nd amendments needs limits because we cant allow people to own nukes or bio weapons. Really? I don’t think a law will prevent an owner of a nuke from setting it off.

    • I seriously fear we will discover how true that is one day.

      Look at it from an Islamist POV: Who’s the greater Satan? The Jews, or the US?

      Yes, they want Israel destroyed.

      But really hurting the USA will be really, really, REALLY, tempting.

    • “Facebook? What’s that?”

      It’s what they rammed down our throats instead of giving us really cool jetpacks or a flying car in every driveway.

      (runway?)

  49. And if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound? I love how liberal farts try to twist words to try to make a point about something. This is the most moronic comment yet

  50. Why not? They are fun to laugh at.
    Dang, I’ve missed you guys.

  51. I think some folks are on the right track here: you’d run out of room and time and storage space to collect all the stupidity by everybody.

    I would suggest (and I responded to another poster above, but wanted to put it here, too, for emphasis) that you narrow the focus: Lie of the day as told by prominent figure (government official, outspoken celebrity, etc). Point out their deceit, record/link references to the lie and then link to the source of truth as suggested above by Dale in Shawnee.

  52. How about stopping the video ads on your website instead? You know, the ones that play a minute or two after landing on one of your web pages. When I watch a video you posted within one of your articles, the video ad later kicks in and then I have two videos playing at once. I would suggest you spend your time fixing this recurring problem. It is so annoying that I visit this website less often and view less web pages on it.

    • And it’s worse. Replying to a comment like yours loads the page again (video plays again), then you hit “post comment” and the video plays yet again.

      If there’s one thing that will drive me away from this site, it’s constantly having to scroll to the top of the page to pause the video (or destroy my data allowance OR watch the browser bloat because the crapplet that plays them is one big memory leak)…Of course that problem is now solved because many of the videos now cannot be paused (though, mercifully, those don’t replay over and over again, downloading the video again, wasting your bandwidth on every rep while STILL not freeing the memory the last play of the video took up, which brings your machine to a standstill).

  53. We are in the midst of a historic national (if not worldwide) fight over the rights of individuals to keep and bear arms. These are not normal times and so, with respect Robert, this is not a time for complacency. Keep putting up the posts. People visiting here are not obligated to read them.

  54. Yes TTAG should run the comments and the faces of those who make the comments. There has to be accountability. If I make an ignorant tasteless comment, not that I have EVER done that, I expect to be held accountable, and the same applies to everyone else, ESPECIALLY the antis.

  55. While you’re at it, it might be helpful to shine some light on some stupid pro-gun comments every now and then too. Some people on our side have lost all sense of proportion and don’t know what’s actually acceptable. Might as well try to get them in line since the anti crowd uses them for their agitprop. By exposing them it’ll actually show that this sort of behavior is unacceptable, instead of par for the course as the antis try to claim.

    My $.02

    • “Some people on our side have lost all sense of proportion and don’t know what’s actually acceptable.”

      Because they’re making an effort to change what is acceptable…

  56. Thank you for that term “groundlings”…like small fish mouths open gasping for air …a visual that describes the progtards “thinking” and comments, in forums at Kos, RawStory, Media Matters.

    We are guilty of cheap thrills enough, mocking the crazy Moms Demanding, Action, and other anti-gunners ravings and rantings, at PuffHos, Rolling Stoned, MSNBC, TPM, and other “pay for propaganda” news sites…

    But FakeBook? Ewww, no. Thats like visiting a dirty magazine store…its bad enough you might be seen wandering the aisles with the mumbling derelicts peering at vaque, shrink wrapped bad porn equivalent of “content” but going in the forums? Thats like cruising the dimly lit back boothes, close to the shifty eyed bad smelling denizens, and risk brushing up against the walls, and get that crusty gummy spew stuck on yourself.

    Back to medieval England…I’d rather visit Bedlam, and rent a stick to poke at the nutters, the modern day equivalent being WAPO or NYT forums.

    • (Facebook) “Thats like cruising the dimly lit back boothes, close to the shifty eyed bad smelling denizens, and risk brushing up against the walls, and get that crusty gummy spew stuck on yourself.”

      It almost sounds like you might know…

      Er, never mind. 🙂

  57. How about we dont have “stupid” comments of the day. How about we have common “less than intelligent” arguements, and then you guys simply write how you would “answer back” to said arguement.

    Do this and you are both listing dumb arguements, but you are also helping people of the gun learn how to better debate these dumb ideas against the 2A because lets be honest, all anti messages are dumb.

    Make sense?

  60. My vote is no on this one. I’m not a huge fan of them on the FB page to be honest, I used to read them and find them amusing but anymore I just find myself getting more and more frustrated at the stupidity and ignorance displayed.

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