Guns & Ammo editor Jim Bequette says he was hoping to generate a "healthy exchange of ideas on gun rights" when he decided to publish a column that veered ever-so slightly from the the usual from-my-cold-dead-hands rhetoric normally found in the pages of his magazine. It's safe to say that effort didn't go exactly as he had hoped.
After a swift and vocal backlash from readers and other Second Amendment enthusiasts, Bequette announced yesterday that he was stepping down immediately, and that the magazine was also cutting ties with the author of the piece in question, contributing editor Dick Metcalf. "I made a mistake by publishing the column," Bequette wrote in an apologetic letter to readers. "I thought it would generate a healthy exchange of ideas on gun rights. I miscalculated, pure and simple. I was wrong, and I ask your forgiveness."
So what did Dick Metcalfe do that was so wrong? He wrote 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," Metcalf wrote. "And I do believe their fellow citizens, by the specific language of the Second Amendment, have an equal right to enact regulatory laws requiring them to undergo adequate training and preparation for the responsibility of bearing arms."
Clearly this guy does not clearly understand the 2nd Amendment as translated by gun fetishists who fantasize about the country being invaded by a brown skinned army or terrorists that can only be repelled by their private arsenal full of military style weaponry.
And clearly any attempt to dissuade them of that ridiculous concept, even from within, will be met with anger and viscious attacks from crazed gun nuts.
We don't need no more stinkin' gun laws 'cause we got us the second amenmint.
ReplyDeleteHe could have published the simple statement "Criminals should not have access to firearms" and he still would have been fired....
ReplyDeletethere is no reasoning with some people
He needs to realize there is no middle ground. This country has been Guns, God and Babies vs. Reasonable Thought for a long time. There are two Americas.
ReplyDeleteI find it funny how there are restrictions on the First Amendment (Remember the free speech zones during the 2004 Republican convention in New York), the Fourth regarding illegal search and seizure, the Fifth (remember how they could interrogate the Boston Bomber without mirandizing him) but bring up the Second and all hell breaks loose. I would ask those people who believe the Second Amendment is sacrosanct if they believe the same of all the other Amendments. If they don't well they are just a bunch of gun crazed hypocrites.
ReplyDeleteI like his most humble mea culpa. He knows the nutcases he's dealing with and doesn't want a visit from one of them. Don't say I blame him. But hey, he took the job in the first place!
ReplyDeleteYou can't reason with crazy people.
"I thought it would generate a healthy exchange of ideas on gun rights. I miscalculated, pure and simple. I was wrong, and I ask your forgiveness."
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This passage doesn't make any sense. Is he asking their forgiveness for insulting them by thinking that they were capable of a "healthy exchange of ideas"? If that's the case, maybe it should read as follows:
"I thought it would generate a healthy exchange of ideas on gun rights. I miscalculated, pure and simple. I was wrong. I should have known that you simple-minded angermonkeys would never allow such a thing as "a healthy exchange of ideas" so I have taken steps to ensure that such a thing will never happen again in this magazine. We will once again be the voice of guns, ammo, anger, and ignorance.
As I said before elsewhere on this story, the yellow-eyed batshit insane firearms fetishists are painting an ever larger target on themselves because they refuse to police themselves at all. They are forcing the sane, moderate people out and they will bring about that which they most fear. Stricter regulation of gun ownership by federal authorities.
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