Looks like Robyn Ringler has had about enough Reasoned DiscourseTM, and plans to close down comments:
As I have said before, if I were standing in public and someone said these things to me, I would walk away. And so it is not my style to stand still and allow the abuse to pile up all around me and others I respect. That is why I will no longer accept any comments at all.
I’ve mostly ignored Robyn, so I can’t personally say she’s censored anything of mine, but I’ve seen folks who put up posts elsewhere, that they claimed to have posted there and not had them approved, that seemed eminently reasonable to me.
I have no doubt that Robyn has gotten some pretty nasty stuff. For that I apologize on behalf of our community. People get really passionate and angry when you start talking about taking away something they feel is their birthright, and even on my side of the issue, I find myself regularly dealing with a lot of that passion and anger.
I am sorry to those of you who have sent in such thoughtful, intelligent stories and ideas and to those of you who are really fighting on both sides of the debate to find some common ground. I salute all of you and hold you dear to my heart. You are true heroes.
It’s very difficult to find common ground on this issue precisely because the anti-gun movement categorically denies that we have a constitutional right to bear arms and refuses to agree to treat it like other constitutional rights. If Robyn wants to have a debate on the scope of the right to keep and bear arms, I’m game for that, but I don’t think there’s much common ground when you won’t even recognize the right exists at all.
We will remain an open forum here on the pro-gun side of the blogosphere, but I’ve been surprised at how few advocates of gun control are willing to come here and have an open discussion with gun-right advocates. I does not speak to the strength of the gun control side of the argument that they continually have to shut down debate and discussion for their views to triumph.
UPDATE: Thirdpower has more
If you ever see that movie “Runaway Jury”, that is probably an example of the anti-gunner’s mentality. It is also a ridiculous depiction of lawyers.
There was an anti on a message board I used to frequent who used the cases from that movie as actual occurrences to protest against guns. He didn’t last long either.
I have no doubt that Robyn has gotten some pretty nasty stuff. For that I apologize on behalf of our community. People get really passionate and angry when you start talking about taking away something they feel is their birthright, and even on my side of the issue, I find myself regularly dealing with a lot of that passion and anger.
Shorter Sebastian: ‘Threats are ok if you’re passionate.
No, that’s not what I said. Please don’t take what I said as a justification for threats. That’s a nice way of saying some of the angrier folks take it out on me too.
Take it out on me because I choose to treat folks like you as other people who disagree with me, rather than as traitors.
Wow, Jade’s really having to reach for this one. Kind of like Alex’s little tirade against “guav”, this is getting really pathetic.
Sebastian,
Don’t bother with Jadegold’s ad hominen guilt by association attacks.
It’s something he’s notorious for in the blogosphere. And for Jade to lecture anyone on threats is kind of silly given his threat a few years ago on Rob Port’s career.
A threat Jade never made good on.
Thanks for the heads up. I didn’t realize our friend Jadegold was a notorious troll.
Really? Jade’s been getting banned from sites for years. I first encountered him on Kevin’s site (which Jade falsely claims to have had comments deleted from) a while back.
This current round of nonsense is to detract from all of the “I was banned/deleted from sites” claims that never happened and he was called on to prove.
http://www.saysuncle.com/archives/2007/08/31/pants_on_fire-2/
I had never heard or read of him until recently, here. I hope Sebastian doesn’t ban him. He is so ridiculously illogically funny that sometimes I laugh out loud.
That boy is a mess.