After a series of horrific IRA attacks, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had this to say to the electorate: “Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.” Fortunately, the anti-British violence abated. Equally important, the British press emerged from the crisis unmuzzled. The Land of Hope and Glory didn’t sacrifice freedom of speech on the altar of expediency and ideological purity. Unfortunately, American gun blogs have adopted the Thatcherite position on gun control advocacy . . .
For years, some members of the gun blogging community has followed an unwritten rule regarding websites antagonistic to the Second Amendment: no links. The policy was born during dark days, when local, state and federal governments opposing Americans’ right to armed self-defense were triumphant. Gun bloggers felt that starving pro-gun control websites of traffic would isolate them and, thus, ensure their oblivion. The policy was, at least in part, successful.
In that sense, the anti-gun control website blacklist is entirely understandable. It was a practical response to a grave danger. Given the Second Amendment’s importance to the cause of liberty and personal safety, you could even say that the information war was a matter of life or death. Make no mistake: we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the pro-gun Internet voices who kept the faith during one of the worst periods of gun control in this nation’s history.
When I started The Truth About Guns (TTAG), I was lucky enough to do so as gun rights regained the moral and then legal high ground. I felt no sense of embattlement, no compunction to shun gun control advocates. Quite the opposite. From the outset, I encouraged input from pro-gun control writers and commentators. I felt then, as I do now, that the unexamined belief is not worth holding. That the open and free exchange of ideas only strengthens the cause of truth. Which is not relative. Not to coin a phrase, let me be perfectly clear . . .
For me, the truth about guns was—and is—that we have the God given right to armed self-defense. The right to keep and bear arms is the bulwark against criminals and government tyranny. It’s integral to the past and future success of this nation and the predominance of the rule of law. I share the Founding Fathers’ conviction that the government should make no laws infringing upon that right.
But I also know there’s a reason the Second Amendment followed the First. Freedom of speech is the bedrock of democracy. Without it, we are slaves. If we—all of us—lack the freedom of speech, we cannot manipulate the levers of democracy to protect any of our other rights.
The idea of excluding gun control advocates and leaving out links to pro-gun control websites never occurred to me. How can I respect the freedom of speech while restricting readers to one point of view? By the same token, how can I deny readers access to original source material so that they can judge the integrity of my analysis? The truth flourishes in a vigorous marketplace of ideas. It lies fallow in the cold sterility of an empty echo chamber.
This is not an opinion shared by all members of the gun blogging community. They’ve concluded that The Truth About Guns’ inclusive editorial policy harms the cause of gun rights. They believe I’m giving aid and succor to the enemy. They have blacklisted TTAG. They will not link to this site.
In the interests of fairness and fraternity, I won’t burn bridges and name names. Suffice it to say, their opposition has not—will not—change my stance. I will continue to provide safe harbor for all points of view on gun rights and gun control. I will continue to link to sites whose opinions on firearms I find abhorrent. Abandoning this editorial policy would render meaningless nearly two years and over a million words of effort. And the hard work and passion of the writers and commentators who’ve generously donated their time and energy to this website.
I invite participants in this unofficial blacklist to reconsider their position. While I understand and appreciate their motivation, times have changed. To defend and extend the gains that the Internet pioneers fought so hard to achieve, gun rights advocates must reach out to the mainstream. In this endeavor we must not be afraid to engage our detractors. To prove that we are fair-minded. That we deserve a willing ear. To open the general public’s minds to the truth about guns.
RF,
Has any gunblogger actually told you, or posted publicly, that they are blacklisting you?
Or are you guessing that there is a blacklist due to a lack of links?
All I can say is that I have it on good authority. OK, I can also say I’m not making this shit up.
How many blogs are we talking about?
I mean, the internet is a big place. There is bound to be at least one person pissed off about any blog, who refuses to go there. Look at how many people refuse to visit Little Green Footballs since the owner went off his meds.
I, for one, will not visit or link to a particular gunblog whose glass-house-dwelling owner said some snotty things about my co-blogger and I when we first started out. But that is one blog, and there was a specific reason for my steering clear of it. I wouldn’t call that a blacklist, more like “live and let live”.
If someone put me onto a blacklist of some sort, I would want to know how many people were part of this blacklist, and what their reason for creating the blacklist was. If it was one lone blogger, who cares? And if the reason was stupid or incoherent, well, who cares about them?
But, if it’s a bunch of people, and their complaint has merit, I would need to re-examine what I was doing. And that’s tough to do. The one person that we should never lie to is ourselves.
Dude, I feel your skeptical indignation. You’ve got my number. Ping me.
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I got here from saysuncle.com, one of the better aggregator blogs of firearms links, IMHO. I got to his website years ago from Kim du Toit’s blog, now retired from the internet. I got to Kim’s from instapundit.com, and found him from imao.us, IIRC. I have spent hours daily, over years and years reading blogs, often pro-gun blogs, and some anti-gun blogs (when I could stand the folderol they serve) even the eponymously syndromic Joan Peterson’s commongunsense.com blog.
Joan Peterson has not been blacklisted by pro-gun bloggers, and she is a person incapable of determining the truth or falsity of a statement with a guidebook, expert assistance, and neon lights to mark the way. Why would you think your blog would be blacklisted if hers is not?
That your blog is ignored may not be a blacklisting, it may be lack of interest.
Huh. Never knew anything about a blacklist. Just never saw anything worth linking to here. But then again, I am pretty new to the blogging thing.
But this is not a nice first impression.
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I won’t link to you because you do not respect intellectual property rights and you have been caught lying about it in the past.
I don’t link to MikeB302000 (and I mock his comments and suggest he go away) because he’s a liar and hostile to basic human rights.
“Freedom of speech” means you can have any forum you can afford — a blog, for instance. It doesn’t mean you have any right to expect links from anyone — and certainly doesn’t mean you can steal their content.
–And don’t come on all confused. Tam K lives in my attic.
The post in question was a mistake. We scraped too much content. I have apologized to the author there, and I do so again here.
TTAG adheres to the principle of fair use. This was a regrettable exception. It won’t happen again.
Also, I don’t believe that anyone has an obligation to link to us ever. I simply feel that the policy of not linking to sites that link to pro-gun control sites (or not linking directly to pro-gun controls sites) is a practice that should be exposed, especially as it affects the readers’ ability to discern the truth. As the editorial maintains.
“Exposed?” It was never hidden — and never a formal policy except as individual bloggers decided for themselves.
I have seen you repost entire (different) articles from the same blogger twice — and get snippy when called on it.
You’re a lousy netizen. If folks don’t like you much, you earned it fair and square. Man up and accept it.
“I have seen you repost entire (different) articles from the same blogger twice — and get snippy when called on it.”
Links? Again, this is NOT our policy. I will clean up any violations and ensure against future ones. More than that I can not do.
“…The Land of Hope and Glory didn’t sacrifice freedom of speech on the altar of expediency and ideological purity. Unfortunately, American gun blogs have adopted the Thatcherite position on gun control advocacy . . .
For years, some members of the gun blogging community has(sic) followed an unwritten rule regarding websites antagonistic to the Second Amendment: no links…”
This example of blogarbage is moronically and eminently-mockably incorrect on several levels:
1) It represents a total misunderstanding/misinterpretation of what Margaret Thatcher stated,
2) It attempts to expound upon the existence of an “unwritten rule” that not only exists exclusively in the somewhat-fevered imagination of the writer (and perhaps that of his alleged “good authority”), but is clearly controverted by visible evidence,
3) And, finally, it leads into what is a clearly absurd misapprehension of the plain meaning of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.
If you wish to achieve even some small measure of actual enlightenment re: Thatcher and her statements or the aforementioned First Amendment, you must revisit each in turn – try to do so without the confusion you presently exhibit obscuring what each actually means.
Unfortunately, I fear that you will have great difficulty with this – since, currently, you appear to be such a fool as to be beyond understanding that you are being foolish, and are therefore totally incorrect in what you wrote.
Consider, if you will, the simple fact: No one, either pro- or anti-gun (or even somewhere in between) is or should be under any sort of obligation via the freedom of speech principles expounded in the First Amendment to provide any sort of forum to those who oppose their views. This includes “links” to the opposition’s statements and/or locations.
Conversely: No one, either favorable to or in opposition to your particular viewpoint(s) or statement(s) is obliged to afford you any such “link” – though they may do so if they so choose.
“I simply feel that the policy of not linking to sites that link to pro-gun control sites (or not linking directly to pro-gun controls sites) is a practice that should be exposed, especially as it affects the readers’ ability to discern the truth.”
That is quite obviously not what you wrote, nor is it, objectively, what you appear to have intended to mean.
And your “good authority” (if such actually exists) is full of bull excrement, to put it politely.
Best of luck with TTAG – with your current attitude, you’re going to need all you can get.
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Forgive me for dropping in..I won’t be back. But this has to be probably one of the dumbest threads I’ve ever perused. Since I have a “gun blog” (so to speak) that probably no one knows about, I guess I should be pissed off that TTAG has not linked to my blog. Got something against me, dude? What’s your problem, anyway?
Did that sound stupid? It should have. I link to a lot of other blogs, but not yours. And after looking at TTAG, I figure I won’t waste my time. And that is NOT black-listing you; I’m just not going to give anyone a “click” to a blog I don’t like. If I wanted to black-list you, I’d start posting articles detrimental to your views and telling others to stay away from you. I’d deliberately bad-mouth you and point out your “obvious weakness for pro-gun control groups.”
It sounds to me like you’re a spoiled child who doesn’t think it’s fair because he’s not included in the group he’d like to be a part of, so he cries “foul” and “unfair.” And then the spin-off to religious stuff just made the whole argument turn “nut-so.” I hope you find someone who will link to your site, since so many of us are obviously against you and your ideas. Good luck!
+1
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