Fun With Guns. No, Seriously, Real Fun With Guns UPDATED
Wanna make a gun nut crazy?
Of course you do.
Buy him a copy of Guns & Ammo Magazine and tell him to Second Amendment that sucker right up his barrel.
Guns & Ammo, “the world’s most widely read firearms magazine,” is under fire from angry readers over a shocking editorial published in the December issue supporting 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,” contributing editor Dick Metcalf wrote in a column titled “Let’s Talk Limits.” “The fact is, all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.”
The whole well-regulated column is here.
You can trot over to their Facebook page and watch their readers have a damn cow. They argue froth at the mouth that Metcalf should be fired. Because the Second Amendment trumps the First Amendment, I suppose.
So there you have it – the Second Amendment is a sure-fire cure for the First Amendment.
UPDATE: I guess I was looking into a crystal ball when I wrote that last sentence. Metcalf was fired today.
Thanks to Mike for the heads up.
Trust me—there are plenty of Gun Loons who firmly believe that the 2nd Amendment trumps the hell out of the 1st Amendment, the remainder of the U.S. Constitution, and the New Testament, combined. I am frankly amazed that the “Guns and Ammo” guy had enough guts to publish something which reflects a little clear thinking on the issue. Don’t look for anything like this to ever turn up in “American Rifleman” (the NRA’s rag).
1And….here’s the editor’s response to the controversy:
As editor of “Guns & Ammo,” I owe each and every reader a personal apology.
No excuses, no backtracking.
In publishing Metcalf’s column, I was untrue to that tradition, and for that I apologize. His views do not represent mine — nor, most important, “Guns & Ammo”’s. It is very clear to me that they don’t reflect the views of our readership either.
Dick Metcalf has had a long and distinguished career as a gunwriter, but his association with “Guns & Ammo” has officially ended.
I once again offer my personal apology. I understand what our valued readers want. I understand what you believe in when it comes to gun rights, and I believe the same thing.”
Read more: http://www.gunsandammo.com/2013/11/06/response-december-2013-backpage-column/#ixzz2jyEewQY8
2Don’t know Mr Metcalf in any way. In one way at least his firing was predictable: if you use the word “limit” in any context within hearing distance of some folk on either side of the debate the hysteria soon follows.
About limits: I drive a motor vehicle. Used to drive an airplane. Had licenses for both. Plus a motorcycle endorsement. Frankly competency with a shotgun DOES NOT imply competency with a rifle or a handgun, any more than it implies competency with a carving knife. I’ve hunted once with a number of people, but not twice with quite a few. So it goes.
3The gun extremists strike again.
They did the same thing years back, to a writer who trashed assault rifles in an outdoor magazine. The guy had to come crawling back on his belly and issue an apology for his comments; I don’t know if he ever got his career back.
Folks , this is a nation-wide sickness, and it’s an armed-and-dangerous sickness, at that…..
4Good to know these gun owners are sooooooooooooo open-minded. Butt-hurt much?
5Steve, you speak the truth. The sickness to which you refer seems all wrapped up in the conservative extremists’ position: “If you disagree, even a little bit, you are the enemy.”
6@Steve … and that sickness is spreading like wildfire across too many states and is culminating in innocent people being gunned down in places where guns should never be allowed!
Two folks in CO were recalled by the RWNJs in CO because they are so damned afraid the President or someone else will come knocking on their doors to take away their precious guns!
It is a sickness for sure and there is no known antibiotic for the cure!
7Think of the organization and manpower needed to confiscate a couple hundred million guns. It will never, ever happen, contrary to the fear-monger’s assertions and preparations for resistance. If the Government was serious about taking away guns, they would start by raising prices for ammunition to make bullets scarce. But the whackjobs cannot think rationally, so we get the Big Scare all the time.
8Ah, gun nuts, they say with Voltaire “I disagree with what you say and I will defend with your death my right to do so.
9This is the sort of attitude that will put off gun safety laws for quite a while. Then, when the majority gets fed up with gun violence, we will get draconian laws instead of moderate ones. (It worked in Australia: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-usa-guns-australia-idUSBRE9320C720130403)
And they will have brought it on themselves.
10I quit the NRA because of the gun nuts. I attended one of the rifle and shotgun trainings sponsored by the NRA because I wanted to facilitate training for the BSA. We were allowed to shoot some weapons from the county armory. It was interesting to fire a full auto machine gun, but it was appalling that some of the other attendees acted almost like they had a orgasm when they fired the same weapon.
11The ironic thing about this is that the National Rifle Association ALREADY HAS a comprehensive databank on who owns firearms in this country that was assembled from all sorts of sources, including class rosters of anyone who takes a concealed carry class.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/stevefriess/how-the-nra-built-a-massive-secret-database-of-gun-owners
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/08/nra-hates-gun-owner-lists-except-its-database.html
It’s OKAY for the NRA to keep secret lists of tens of millions of gun owners, but not for anyone else to know that information because the guvmint is a-comin’ to confiscate all your fahr arms, you know….
12Actually, Guns & Ammo missed an opportunity to make a positive change in America. There are many of responsible guns owners who DO follow the safety rules & laws. G&A could have peeled these trustworthy folks away from Wayne LaPierre’s American Rifleman Kult. Old Wayne would be left with the paranoid morons who believe everyone’s out to get them.
If Wayne LaPierre wants a war, let home fight one against other gun owner groups & leave us alone.
13Readers of the magazine probably have a point, after all, they didn’t subscribe to “Guns & Brains Magazine.”
14To illustrate my previous point, I would guess the guys in the following article might be subscribers. They shot themselves while out hunting… bigfoot:
15http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=23863004
Sigh.
16Truth??? We don’t listen to no truth! We don’t need no truth!
17Yep, that I’m always right on this issue and your are always wrong and therefore the enemy is a characteristic of cult thinking. Remember that old bromide when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns? I wonder what somebody gets when cults are outlawed?
18@mikey: re: machine guns
19When I was about 10 my dad, an enlisted Marine, got me access to a range at Pendleton on which I was allowed to fire a Ma Deuce, Browning M-2 caliber 50 machine gun. If you believe Death, the Reaper, exists personified, here it is. Just holding the handles, touching the trigger, summoned Death and in my mind transported me in an instant to Normandy and Iwo. I’m now 60+ and the memory of that machine is still burned into my brain.
I especially like the comment calling them a bunch of Hippocrates.
20And now the author of the editorial has been fired…. apparently the 2nd Amendment means more than the 1st to the gun lovers….
21Metcalf taught Constitutional Law at Yale and was a second amendment expert,but responsible gun owners know the Founder’s second amendment intent better than any scholar. As for Metcalf’s 1st amendment rights,he apparently had to check that at the door to his office.
22@Brian #21- I realize RWNJs and gunsuckers don’t do irony but I find it ironic the gunhumpers tend to claim that absolute fidelity to the 2nd amendment is necessary to protect the other amendments including the 1st. I guess that doesn’t apply in this case or any other case of an offended gunsucker. Unfortunately, or not, I don’t have a subscription to that rag I could cancel to indicate disagreement and to reduce clutter in my living space.
23Metcalf got fired for that?! Ugh.
24Apparently hundreds of Legislators, dozens of Supreme Court Justices and a double handful of Presidents got it wrong. All those gun control laws that have been around for over a century are unconstitutional. Who knew?
I’m glad we have G&A readers to set us straight.
25If you think G&A is something else (whatever!), get a load of Gardens & Guns. I kid you not. Zoom down to your nearest magazine stand. You won’t believe this pairing!
26Sickening but not surprising that such a rational, moderate column should raise a foaming mob armed with torches and pitchforks, and elicit that grovelling apology from the editor. They think that ANY restriction is a jackbooted gummint thug comin’ fer their precious guns. A couple of years ago the House even voted down a bill that would have made it harder for stalkers, pedophiles, and people on the terrorist watch list to get guns. No wonder Al Qaida tells its members that the US of A is a wide-open gun shopping mall, come and get ’em here!
27Please stop with the first amendment baloney. Congress didn’t fire him, the magazine responded to economic pressure, just like Fox did with Glenn Beck.
We loved Beck’s denouement, correct.
We laughed at conservative’s cries of “first amendment” correct?
We mocked Palin’s ignorance of the role of the Vice Presidency, correct?
There was no 1st amendment infringement here, correct?
Big sigh.
28James, I think you’re missing the irony here. We’re not blind to the fact that free enterprise hurts more conservatives than Democrats. We are also not blind to the irony that republicans are unwilling to support the First Amendment with the same drooling that they do the second.
Democrats believe there are some proper regulations of the First Amendment but Republicans believe there is NO proper regulation of the Second.
Plus, I just flat love elbowing you guys just to hear you start screaming “Glen Beck!” With tears streaming down your face.
My work here is done.
29Metcalf’s only fault was speaking common sense to people who have none and want none. Since it was his words that cost him his job,it’s a 1st amendment infringement. Guns and Ammo caved to gun nuts so fast they didn’t have time to suffer economically. The right really does eat it’s own.
30I live in Gohmert’s district. As a reasonable person this should qualify me for something….like an exceptional ability to keep my mouth shut (hard won skill). If 80 % of the people I deal with on a daily business knew what I was thinking I couldn’t be in business here. But recently I feel the tide is turning…I can’t tell you exactly why I feel this way but I do. They have gone too far, folks have waked up…I don’t know exactly why but I feel it and it isn’t left or right…it is everybody has had enough.
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