Guns & Ammo Fires Editor After Publishing Editorial Calling for Gun Control
Source: Mediaite
Guns and Ammo Magazine, the “world’s most widely read firearms magazine,” has fired contributing editor Dick Metcalf after the publication received immense backlash for its December 2013 issue featuring his editorial advocating for gun control.
“Way too many gun owners still seem to believe that any regulation of the right to keep and bear arms is an infringement,” Metcalf wrote in the column titled “Let’s Talk Limits.” “The fact is, all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.”
“All U.S. citizens have a right to keep and bear arms,” he added, “but I do not believe that they have a right to use them irresponsibly.”
The backlash was immense. Readers flocked to social media to decry the magazine’s editorial decision and threaten to cancel their subscriptions. All the attention resulted in the magazine’s editor Jim Bequette posting a letter online apologizing to readers and announcing that Guns & Ammo has fired the author.
Read more: http://www.mediaite.com/online/guns-ammo-fires-editor-after-publishing-editorial-calling-for-gun-control
Best Responses from Gun Nuts to a Call for Mild Gun Regulation
http://gawker.com/best-responses-from-gun-nuts-to-a-call-for-mild-gun-reg-1460088554
Those are some brave people at Dicks & Testosterone Magazine for submitting to the wishes of the batshit crazies.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Gun-freaks... 
Although I like "Dicks & Jizz Magazine" just slightly better...
to question our 2nd Amendment rights, so you're fired"!
Or something like that....
...has caused a counter-reaction from the pro-guns movement, I'm afraid.
The fundamental problem that Democrats face is that making gun laws stricter does not generally make society safer, while organizing the gun-owners that are affected by the gun-control laws. And I think we can both admit that some laws that are regularly proposed are not about public safety, but about waging some kind of culture war.
Gun owners, generally speaking, get organized when they feel themselves the victim of unjust gun laws. They put money and effort into organizing politically. Non-gun-owners, though, who do not feel the effects of gun laws they advocate for, do not counter-organize. They do not turn out in large numbers to reward the politicians that make owning what they do not and will not own harder.
Naturally, the continuous efforts by anti-gun groups, primarily Democrats, to ban "assault weapons", as well as a few other treadworn proposals, has made the NRA and many gun-owners reactionary to an extent. They've achieved the mentality that every gun-law proposal will, in some hidden way, be used to deprive people forcefully of their guns. Of course, the fact that the anti-gun groups reflexively propose assault-weapon bans and magazine limits at the slightest mention in the corporate media of an AR-15 doesn't help either.
I finally read the Metcalf editorial in G&A today, and see nothing wrong with it. He is pointing out that a concealed-carry permit can be thought of as an "operator's license" for a CCW pistol. I have no problem with that, and think the magazine was wrong to terminate him.
For what it's worth, in the same issue, in the letters to the editor, the magazine is heavily criticized for not being involved in the post-Newtown gun-control debate, in particular the draconian measures proposed by Senator Feinstein.
What laws are being proposed that would dramatically lessen the guns-per-capita rate in the near future? Nothing, as far as I can tell. Even if things like magazine limits and "assault weapon" bans were passed, they do not affect the number of guns sold, merely the type of guns sold.
If Feinstein had suceeded in her ban on virtually all semi-automatic long guns, then the millions of people year that were buying semiautos for self-defense ("tactical"
use will simply switch over to lever-action and pump-action guns with the same features... AR-15 and AK-47 magazines, nonreflective black finishes, quick-adjustable buttstocks, flash hiders, mounting rails for tactical flashlights and laser sights and holographic sights, etc.
Or handguns. You know, the guns used in 65% of all murders?
What really irritates me is that the "we have to get rid of the guns!" mentality is preventing so much action on the root causes of crime and violence.
In a country where about 13 million guns a year are sold, I doubt more than a million of them are rifles that would be considered "assault weapons", depending on which arbitrary definition you were to use, out of the 4 or 5 million rifles a year sold. Tactical Semi-Automatic (TSA) rifles, if you wish.
What you're really doing is you're trying to fight "gun culture", so you (your side) wants to score a political and social victory by taking away what is popular to gun buyers, even though they are used in a tiny fraction of murders annually. IIRC, the total number of people known to be killed by a rifle is about 400 per year. TSA rifles would account for only a portion of those 400 murders.
Despite the rare use of these rifles in crime and murder, you're (your side is) so disturbed by the marketing, and by the reasons given by people buying those rifles, so you want to take them away as part of the culture war. Piss-poor reasons, in my view, especially considering that the intense dislike and calls for bans are part of the reason those kinds of guns (TSA rifles) are selling like hotcakes. The people that are willing to drop down $1500 for an AR-15 will, if denied the AR-15 due to an AWB, buy a tactical pump or lever-action gun and a handgun for the same price, and because of fears of further regulation.
Handguns are a more complex issue that I don't have the time to address right now, but would like to at some point.
The pro-gun people on this this site generally seem to be against ineffective, culture-war-driven legislation. They also seem to generally be for letting those that want guns to be able to get them (subject, naturally, to some limitations), rather than trying to artificially depress the market. And failing to point out the political consequences of the two previous points would be a disservice to the party and the nation.
Fuckin gun nuts
