How Things Have Changed

Kevin Baker’s “The Smallest Minority” was one of the blogs I’ve read since before I was blogging, a short list that also includes Jeff Soyer and Say Uncle. Many more have come and gone, like, well, Bitter’s old blog, whose archives we just recently restored after the Russians made off with her domain a few years ago (first it was thebitchgirls.us, and then Crimea. Where will it stop?) I was sad but not surprised to see Kevin announce he was semi-retiring. Most of us that have been doing this a while understand. It’s easy to get burnt out constantly having to follow things in order to have something to write about.

This blog has gone 7 years, and after a while, you do a post, and feel like a broken record repeating what you know you said back in 2010, and probably in 2008 before that. Having spent 7 years following every stupid thing media reporters have said, there’s hardly anything that’s new anymore. Our opponents in the gun control movement haven’t had a new idea since the 1990s. Despite the Bloomberg outfit’s new energy for gun control, nothing they are trying is something we haven’t seen before. Moms Demanding Action? I know I’ve seen this before. Oh yeah:

And take a look at that crowd. It was never a million moms, but it’s impressive. Do you think the Bloomberg gun-control organizations could accomplish something like that today? That’s how much the issue has changed in 14 years. I feel like eventually all the blogs I started with will be gone. A lot has changed in blogging too. I wish Kevin Baker the best in spending time on real life. I’m sure it will be enjoyable. I’m still going to hang in there for now, but I won’t be blogging forever.

20 thoughts on “How Things Have Changed”

  1. You have the best blog out there, Sebastian, and yours is the only website I check every single day. Thank you for all that you do.

  2. interested in joining and can’t figure out where that is

    i must have done something correct, i was able to post, thanks

  3. You should take on some regular guest bloggers to reduce your load and keep the brand going.

    1. I’ve thought about bringing more people on board, but it gets harder to manage in some ways unless you have a pretty good number of people.

      1. You could also do a trial- maybe sometime when you are just busy for a week or on vacation. See how it goes. I’d really hate to see this blog go- there aren’t many good PA gun blogs, and also a good national blog. I like your perspective on things (even if I don’t always agree with them).

        I’ve toyed with creating my own blog (and I would definitely do it if this blog retired), so I’d be interesting in blogging for the trial if you do it, to see how I do myself.

        1. Yeah. I’m a VA resident, and in addition to the great national coverage, I spend a LOT of time in PA, with guns. This blog is very useful, and it would be nice to have it remain around.

  4. In addition to being better informed, I’m also more motivated and engaged when it comes to the fight as a result of SNBQ. I’m sure that’s true of many others. Here’s hoping you find a way to recharge the batteries.

  5. It was a real delight to meet-up with you at the Rendezvous after reading your blog – and that’s kinda when I started counting myself as a gun-blogger. Previously blogging about guns was just a bit of outré behavior for my region of Ultra Liberal Land – a thumb in the eye – and it was so great to read other gun-bloggers and then finally meet them!

  6. Kevin and TO Sebastian were the first blogs I started reading after being banned from DU. You were the one who told me to stop posting comments and start my own site an TBFKASIH is still my morning read. I’ll be hitting 7 yrs this fall.

  7. Yep. Agree on all counts. I’m glad your still bloggin, cause I just got burnt out. A couple of attempts to restart went nowhere.

    Keep up the excellent work for as long as you are interested. And then, well, let go. There’s other things in life that are important too, like kids and spouses and work and sanity and getting out of the house.

  8. The Smallest Minority and this one are on my daily reads list. It will be a sad day when you decide to retire too.

    1. Well, Kevin made it 11 years, and I still have 4 to go until I hit that. So there’s probably time yet for me. I think. I worry the news cycle gets very very dry again.

      1. Well, you’ve never been exclusively a gun-rights blog. Perhaps if the blood dancers finally give up and go home, you could regale us with home improvement and home brewing (same thing, to my mind) posts :-)

    1. Speak for yourself. I for one plan to upload me to a quantum computer :) Of course, if I manage that, next priority is to get off this rock. I’ve had about enough of it.

  9. If you get really bored, change the url to pahomebrewblog, and occasionally blog about guns when there’s important news!

  10. I won’t argue with anyone getting out of blogging! I co-ran two blogs for over seven years (at the same time, not combined) and have been out of blogging for almost ten years now. Both blogs still appear in countless blogrolls, one on many humor sites and one on many political sites. The political blog was actually widely read and linked. Many household names in political blogging and media today were people I routinely e-mailed with and spoke back in the day, I even ran web hosting for several persons who show up and TV eliciting the reaction “dude STILL owes me money” in my brain (not enough to make it worthwhile, it’s actually worth more to me these days to be able to bitch about it!) The grinding level of vicious stupidity and personal attacks involved in general political blogging simply turned us off after a while, as it became more popular and the trolls started out posting those who posted thoughtful commentary and it became less and less enjoyable and more and more like a thankless chore. I still toy with getting back in, I even have several URLs and mostly ready sites for aborted forays back into blogging that I abandoned before even making them public.

    Do I want to do a firearms related blog? Yes! Do I think the internet needs another one? Not really! Will I do something? There are some rumblings and if I can get a few people on board to share the load, maybe. I met some awesome people via blogging, just not sure I have the will to go down that road again.

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