Is it me or is TTAG commentator MikeB302000 becoming increasingly brazen? His recent recommendation—a mental health test for anyone who touches a gun—is patent lunacy. His latest blog post—About the Poplawski Death Sentence—offers more of the same only different. The Italian stallion draws a direct connection between cop killer Richard Poplawski and readers of pro gun blogs (i.e. you). “I’ll bet Poplawski’s fellow gun enthusiasts approved [of his death sentence] too. For them it’s of major importance to disavow any connection with these bad apples. A two-hour deliberation to commit state-sanctioned murder for revenge suits their purposes perfectly . . .

The truth is he’s one of them, he’s a product of their extremism which says a gun is the answer. And a frightening aspect of this sick situation is there are others just like him. They’re reading the gun blogs right now, drinking in the lies and poison. They make it to the news too, usually not as dramatically as Poplawski, but they’re there, day after day in every city. Just look.

We do. There are. But they are not us. We are not them. Even though the press tried to paint Poplawski as your average SHTF-aware, gun-loving average Joe, it’s clear he had “issues.” For one, he was dishonorably discharged from the Marines for assaulting a Drill Instructor. For another, this from wtae.com:

One neighbor, who did not want to be identified, said, “He personally threatened my stepdaughter, and chased her through the neighborhood.”

“This kid’s nothing but trouble,” the neighbor said.

I don’t know about you but I’ve never been booted from the Corps, or threatened or chased anyone through my neighborhood, ever.

An invidious distinction? The gun grabbers think gun rights advocates distance themselves from bad apples in order to . . . distance them from apples. But really, the poison fruit falls from the same tree.

I don’t buy it. People who flip out and shoot innocent people are a statistically insignificant proportion of legal gun owners. Legislating the peace-loving majority to stop the lunatic fringe is like banning pancakes to stop obesity.

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57 COMMENTS

  1. If you break the law, you should pay the price. This goes for everyone even if they don’t like guns.

  2. He can’t bring himself to admit HE’S more like the Poplawski’s than we are.

  3. The “running amok” crazed kill and be killed behavior is first noted in the 1770’s by an explorer traveling through Malaysia. The weapons of the day were knives and spears. The sufferer would usually go into a deep, crawl- into- the- corner type depression, then suddenly go into a killing frenzy. The treatment for this mental illness was generally to stab him to death before he stabbed you. There is little difference in this day and age, just the tools which are used. And I happen to agree with the same treatment, given the crime. Perhaps a “barbarian from a backward state” understands a few more things than Sir Mikey does, what with all that book learnin’ and the like.

  4. Richard Poplawski is a gun loon. He shares many of the beliefs that are frequently espoused at TTAG. It would not surprise me to see a TTAG denizen go off in the same general fashion Poplawski did. Would it really surprise any of you? I don’t know why it should. Poplawski doesn’t seem to hold any views that aren’t shared by a number of people here. He simply acted on his.

    • So the standard “Blood in the streets!” stuff:

      “I can tell you’ll go off the deep end, and if you don’t then you’re simmering with secret internal hate. ”

      “Why can’t you see what I see? You’re all loons.”

      Gotta love the implied charge of hypocrisy, because we don’t act out on the beliefs you wish we had. Sorry to disappoint.

    • Uh no.

      Poplawski was, you need guns to protect yourself from the Jews!

      TTAG type is you need guns to protect yourself from the Poplawksi’s of the world.

      Face the facts here Magoo: go on VNN or Stormfront, they are all admitted leftists. They want the government to take care of the white race and interfere in the economy just as much as you.

      A hard majority of these white nationalists are just straight up scum bags who get arrested for drugs and theft frequently, so I wouldn’t be wrong in saying, its hard for these guys to get guns.

    • It would not surprise me to see a TTAG denizen go off in the same general fashion Poplawski did.

      Projection.

  6. Hmm, what a stunning argument Magoo has. Many Catholics have the same views. Some priests have molested children. Therefore all Catholics are child molesters.

  8. Standard astroturfing troll MO. Act in a thoroughly reasonable way to establish both credibility and likeability then gradually became insulting and belligerent. The objective is to disrupt and discredit their opponents. There is at least 1 on every non-leftist blog. Even a center-left blogger like Ann Althouse has them. With these characters it’s the party line or you are to be destroyed. DELETED The best way to deal with them is to ignore them and when the opportunity arise ridicule them. Banning it doesn’t work because they will only come back under a new name

  9. Men of violence, like Magoo and Mike (they want others in black uniforms to carry out violence against peace and liberty loving individuals) would not worry, anger, or concern me at all except for the fact that such people are usually politically active. Hence, Mike running for political office because he knows what’s best for us. He probably dreams about exercising power over others.

  10. Looks like I struck a nerve. I’m not telling you guys anything you don’t know. You can read.

    • I think Magoo might be right guys. He does lurk here on this gun blog and admitted in several posts the other day that he hates cops and has a very negative opinion of them. There just might be a potential cop killer here on TTAG. After all your just a normal guy right up until you aren’t.

      • Really? He’s anti-police?

        How does that square with wanting the populace at large disarmed?

        Does he want the police disarmed too?

        Or is he okay with having an organization he apparently hates having an even larger discrepancy of force over the public.

        I didn’t think the way to make the police less full of feelings of superiority over the populace would be to enshrine in law that they were the “only ones” to carry guns.

        I mean if you think the police are bad then why would you want to give them discretionary power on who can and cannot have guns.

        How could such a person not look at May-Issue as a scam where friends and family of the police get special treatment and rivals and enemies get special “attention”?

  11. Sorry guys. The Truth About Guns has a no-flaming policy, and you’ve gone WAY over the line.

    I’ve gone back and deleted flames.

    I am grateful to MikeB30200 and Magoo for making sure that TTAG is not an echo chamber. Please respect their right to be wrong. If you believe they are.

    Also feel free to contradict them with passion. Just keep it civil.

    • Robert, I appreciate the need to have free and open debate regarding the matters presented here. Civility is essential and it is what separates “us” from “them”. This is what civil discourse is all about and the forum that you provide is valuable beyond measure. However, I also believe that when the majority of your readership is slandered by one or more who would conflate our honorable beliefs with those of proven violent lunatics, the matter needs to be confronted sternly and those conflationists need to be held to account as well as put in their place/shown the error of their ways. Do you honestly think that those who would tar us with such a broad brush are not: A. Delusional, B. Projecting, C. Need to get out of their own echo chamber more, and D. Are wrapped too tightly in their own myopic navel? Just askin’. What’s that old saying about fighting fire with fire? Where appropriate, of course. I too am grateful to Mikey and Magoo for keeping things, hmmm, …lively?

      • Not responding to a flame without flaming is difficult. But not impossible. (Never forget the power of an arched eyebrow.) And desirable, for the long-term health of the this site.

        Your understanding is most appreciate.

    • Robert:

      While I find your sentiments about open debate to have a certain nobility you are naive in thinking that magoo or mikeb are merely engaging in vigorous debate for its own sake. They are engaging in a propaganda campaign to destroy the credibility of those with whom they disagree. There is no symetry between our concept of freedom of speech and theirs.

      • While I respect your no-flaming policy I believe you are the one who seems to be in the wrong here, Robert. You remove the ‘flames’ of people who you deem to be provoking/flaming and yet you keep the ones (MikeB and Magoo) around who are here for just that. You claim you don’t want this site to become an echo chamber. You fully know who they are and why they are here and you fully know that they are here to stir up crap. When the crap is noticeably stirred you delete the ‘flames’ of those who choose not to be called down on. Even though a set group of folks is here for no other reason then to fan ‘flames’, whom you choose to keep. Kind of a catch 22, don’t you think?

        In any case I believe my time here is done as a poster, I will sit and watch the same old story roll over and observe yourself giving a handy and dry bridge in which for people that can be called nothing but trolls to dwell. Good day, Sir. I wish you well in achieving your goals but I believe in my right to freedom of speech as much as a trolls.

        I have posted the thoughts of those that have it ‘well on track’ below your reply. They have it right. You might want to keep an ear. There isn’t anything wrong with a tarring of a whole group of people but for those people to speak up and actually show emotion is a no-no. Good luck with the jilted company you seem to want to keep.

        Buuurr

        “
        Robert Farago says:
        July 1, 2011 at 9:08 PM
        Sorry guys. The Truth About Guns has a no-flaming policy, and you’ve gone WAY over the line.

        I’ve gone back and deleted flames.

        I am grateful to MikeB30200 and Magoo for making sure that TTAG is not an echo chamber. Please respect their right to be wrong. If you believe they are.

        Also feel free to contradict them with passion. Just keep it civil.

        Reply
        Greg in Allston says:
        July 1, 2011 at 11:02 PM
        Robert, I appreciate the need to have free and open debate regarding the matters presented here. Civility is essential and it is what separates “us” from “them”. This is what civil discourse is all about and the forum that you provide is valuable beyond measure. However, I also believe that when the majority of your readership is slandered by one or more who would conflate our honorable beliefs with those of proven violent lunatics, the matter needs to be confronted sternly and those conflationists need to be held to account as well as put in their place/shown the error of their ways. Do you honestly think that those who would tar us with such a broad brush are not: A. Delusional, B. Projecting, C. Need to get out of their own echo chamber more, and D. Are wrapped too tightly in their own myopic navel? Just askin’. What’s that old saying about fighting fire with fire? Where appropriate, of course. I too am grateful to Mikey and Magoo for keeping things, hmmm, …lively?

        Reply
        tdiinva says:
        July 1, 2011 at 11:31 PM
        Robert:

        While I find your sentiments about open debate to have a certain nobility you are naive in thinking that magoo or mikeb are merely engaging in vigorous debate for its own sake. They are engaging in a propaganda campaign to destroy the credibility of those with whom they disagree. There is no symetry between our concept of freedom of speech and theirs.”

        • You will be missed. Please reconsider.

          I believe that simple name calling is a practice best left to the enemies of gun rights. There’s nothing wrong with—everything right with—eviscerating an opponent’s arguments with passionate politesse.

          Well, that’s the theory. I apologize for failing to make this distinction clear, or palatable.

        • Burrr:

          The objective of Magoo et al is to cause enough disruption and dissention to drive people away and and reduce TTAG to an unread blog. You don’t have to ban a voice to censor it. Please keep posting.

      • I am not naive. You’ll see the word “agit-prop” in many of our posts. But we can not close our ears and go lalalalalala when gun control folk launch their “common sense” campaigns. It behooves gun rights advocates to expose and deconstruct their lies and misinformation, rather than simply deny them what Margaret Thatcher called “the oxygen of publicity.”

        • Robert:

          This is what you are naive about: Magoo and mikeb aren’t here for robust debate. They are here to hijack discussions and hopefully generate the kind of discussion that they can later point to so they can discredit gun owners. Spend enough time in the new media and you see this MO all over.

          You have to feed trolls enough to prevent the echo chamber effect but you can’t make them fat to the point where they drive people away.

    • How does Magoo’s claim that we’re all seething rage-bots about to go postal square with being civil?

  12. “They’re reading the gun blogs right now, drinking in the lies and poison.”

    Actually, it’s a rum and coke…its Friday after all!

  13. Aw man, did I miss out on a fire fight? Oh well, maybe it’s for the best: I’m taking my special medicine and being on my best behavior.

    • You obviously are represented in Congress by Jim Moran. He is a leftist who has associations with Stormfront. He also beats his wife and takes bribes.

      From Margret Sanger through todays alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood so-call Progressives have had a cozy relations with Nazis. There is as much virulent anti-semitism found in the Daily Kos as there is on any neo-Nazi sight.

      Hitler ran a Progressive society: Germany under the Nazis was quite
      Anegalitarian society, provided universal health care, was enviromentally aware and supported the Palestinians.

  15. Hi, guys. This is my first post, and I’ll be up front with you: I’m a liberal, and I’m a lesbian, too! I am NOT, however, a “gun-grabber”; far from it. My partner and I have been reading TTAG for 2-3 weeks now, and I decided to join so I could talk with y’all and ask questions. We have purchased a few guns: a couple of rifles, and a couple of handguns. We go to the range pretty much weekly for practice.

    Frankly, self defence is everyone’s business. In the past few weeks we’ve had our eyes opened on a few subjects, such as the 2nd Amendment and gun control. I do want some form of gun control, if only to keep guns out of the hands of psycho- or socio-paths. I do NOT want more laws out there to confuse and restrict.

    That said, hello to one and all!

    • Welcome Rebecca and Partner
      Post when you feel the need and ask questions. Hope to hear from you soon.

      • Yep, remember, the only stupid question is the one not asked. Mind you, there are a few guys here who are pleasantly twisted and/or slightly off in the head, but no worries-I am the stable one.

        • Yep, remember, the only stupid question is the one not asked.

          Hey, that’s my line! =) I used to use that all the time when I was doing computer training.

          Mind you, there are a few guys here who are pleasantly twisted and/or slightly off in the head, but no worries-I am the stable one.

          Remember that we’ve been reading along in here for 2-3 weeks. If we were worried, we wouldn’t be here. *smirk* Seriously, you guys make a lot of sense. I don’t know that we see eye-to-eye on every topic so far, but on many of them we do.

          • Uh oh, so you know my usual type of entries! I can’t help you on the reloading bit, our reloading gurus are probably still sleeping. I usually buy bulk of 9mm +P+, so I never have to look far for my “real deal” carry ammo. Plus I like to practice at full power. For the “hard stuff ” like +P+, I go to AmmoToGo.com. They have a good selection of +P and +P+ JHP. Their selection is pretty vast, good prices and they ship fast. I like dealing with them. I just found out they have bleeding zombie torso targets even. We have a thing about zombies here. I collect all the zombie movies I find, so I’m keeping an eye on them!

      • Thanks for the welcome!

        I guess the biggest question we’re facing right now is about reloading: which press/system to use? We’re shooting 9mm (Margaret’s got a CZ P-01 [not the SP-01] and I have a XDm), and even when we buy the 1k round bulk for $200, we’re paying about $0.20/round. We think we can reload cheaper. We’re currently looking at a couple of different Lee presses – the Load Master and the Lee Pro 1000 – but if there’s a better kit we should look at, we’re all ears. We want to be able to reload about 200-500 rounds a month, give or take, so we’re not talking about a lot of ammo. Any thoughts?

        • If you are new to reloading and only need 200-500 rounds a month I’d stick with the Lee turret press. They are simple to learn and maintain and don’t break the bank.
          I would not get the Lee progressive. It works, but you have to be mechanically adept to make it run and keep it running and frankly it’s not worth the hassle. If you do decide you need more rounds and want a progressive press, get one of the more expensive ones like Hornady or Dillon.

          • We’re pretty adept; I wrench my motorcycle. So that’s not a large consideration. After doing a bit more research, I’d rather have the progressive than the turret press. I like automation! =)

  16. I’m not sure that my Poplawski post represents in increase in brazenness, like Robert said. I do think it’s pretty strong and that it hit a nerve, as Magoo said.

    Robert’s idea that the ones of you who go off the deep end is an “insignificant proportion of legal gun owners,” is a judgment call. Like all statisitcs there are ways you can look at it that support your argument. Divide the total number of gun owners into the Poplawski-types. You get anm insignificant percentage that way.

    But what if we count all the gun misuse by lawful gun owners, everything, negligence, road-rage brandishings, all of it? And how about if we divide by “active” gun owners, you know that guy who has a gun somehwere in the attic doesn’t count. Or better yet, lets divide by guys like you, the gun-rights activists.

    Now you get a percentage that’s not insignificant at all.

    • No,we are not criminals or mental. We are tired of your open insults. We don’t go to your site and upset your DOZEN of followers.

    • “And how about if we divide by “active” gun owners, you know that guy who has a gun somehwere in the attic doesn’t count. Or better yet, lets divide by guys like you, the gun-rights activists.”

      Active gun owners. hmmmm More people are regularly involved in the shooting sports then play football, basketball, and baseball COMBINED. Feel free to look up the numbers.

      “Now you get a percentage that’s not insignificant at all.”

      300 million gun owners. Is the misuse even as high as 1%

      • I began shooting at five. I made it through the Marines, the Navy, the Army, SC Department of Corrections, Lexington County Sheriff’s Dept., Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office. I have used and been around firearms for 40 years. It was a drunk driver who disabled me for life. Stick those odds in your computer and figure up the percentages.

          • Yes, I was. I started out as a Marine Corps Tanker with a reserve unit, switched over in an interservice transfer after 2 1/2 years to Active USN-I wanted more training. I finished my time and went into the Army, rather than spend two years at a Naval Reserve unit. Do you have a problem with me now, Hoss? Because I’m worried a few of my friends have quit posting because of you, I have another migraine, and I’ve about had enough of your shit. Oh, and it’s spelled Navy-and you capitalize the branches when you list them.

          • I’m waiting. I know you’re online. Are you going to talk shit about how I SERVED MY COUNTRY NOW? 1811 Marine Corps, IC(SS)-I started in the Navy doing runs on SpecOps Nuclear Fast Attack Submarines, 18 Bravo US Army.

          • I’m sorry I lost my temper-to the others, not you, mikeb. Are you so wrapped up in your little world that you don’t read what others write? Type in Tupper and read my discussion on PTSD. I came back and had people question me about this and that. Then invariably the guy would get drunk and spout some crap like “I was a Marine Corps SEAL.” Of course, the Marines have Force Recon. Then I’d get in a fight…Finally I would only hang out at Biker bars or the VFW. But I got tired of war stories at the VFW, so it was just biker bars. Now I try to always stay laughing and calm. It’s not easy being an overachiever who can’t even work because of a cracked eye socket. So I go on here to chill and crack jokes. So sue me.

  17. Anyone who believes my comments were off the mark can simply read the discussion following the blog item, “Lawyer Explains: Is Jared Lee Loughner Crazy, Incompetent, Or Both?” It’s all there in black and white. Like it or not, this is part of your identity. How can you deny it? It’s right there in front of you.

    • Your assertion that this is part of my identity is a vicious slur. You don’t know me and you don’t know anything about me. Your libel is unconscionable. What gives you the right to insult and denigrate us? Just who do you think you are that you can equate people you have never met with the evil killers of this world?

    • Except that according to all the reporting to the extent that Lochner had political views they are on your side of the fence. He was a Daily Kos poster at one time. Observing the behavoir of Liberals around the country this past few months one can only conclude that people who identfy themselves as liberal or Progressive are just one outburst from being the next Jared Lochner.

  18. RF,

    Would you please explain to me what part of my (deleted) comment was a flame?

    I am not trying to be contrary or argumentative. But I cannot adhere to a no-flame policy if the definition of a flame is ever-changing.

    And, it seems that I am not the only person who sees a disparity in what you choose to censor. MikeB and Magoo seem to have a much longer leash than any of the non-troll regulars.

    • In my experience of forums (over 10 years worth,) the trollish are given more bungee cord so that they have more than enough for their eventual leap off the bridge. That way there’s absolutely no room for anyone to say that they weren’t treated fairly when they go *splat*.

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