Guntards.net

Welcome!

I do tend to catch flak at other forums because I'm outside the typical gun-owner political spectrum.

Yup, one tends to catch a lot of flak when outing oneself.  In many forums, I post purely on technical discussions, and that solves the problem handily.  The problem is that Calguns is not about technical issues (even though they are discussed there, but that is mostly a waste of time).

but there are also a lot of really good people in the mix. And it's certainly better than most gun forums in that regard

Taken at face value this seems to indicate that most gun forums have no good people in the mix.  Which, from the standpoint of tolerance, discussion culture, and openness is nearly spot on.

Regarding the lack of open registration over here, that really needs to be fixed. Without it I don't see how this forum can do anything but wither and die. That would be a shame. I hope you can get that sorted out.

+1

But also, there is a problem with the people on this forum: for the most part, we agree.  We don't all vote the same direction (Mike Kelly seems to be pretty darn republican), but disagreements are rare on this forum.  Which tends to make it a bit boring.

Which reminds me - if I ever have any energy left in the evening, I need to write a long reply to Mike.  I think he got upset when I refered to Palin as a "Christo-fascist" and a lot of similar things, and I owe that thread some commentary.

treelogger wrote:

But also, there is a problem with the people on this forum: for the most part, we agree.

Nothing kills a discussion quicker than agreement.

I predict that in the near future we will see more of the moderate people jumping ship from the bigger forums. As the shitstorm of panic over Obama grows larger, folks are going to grow tired of hearing about the impending doom & gloom leaving only the super-kooks to be the voice of the average gun owner.

Won't that be great?

Hopi wrote:

Count me as a refugee......just registered today!

Uh-oh.
It appears that you were deemed a heretic and thus unfit for CalGuns for insulting Islam, err... no, Hinduism... no wait, that one where the guy got nailed to a stick. (I can't keep track of all these silly magics)

Welcome.

In trying to determine why Hopi was banned from Calguns, and for old times' sake, I decided to read some of Calguns.  I tripped over the thread called "Why did you vote for Obama"

BIG MISTAKE.

Now I'm totally pissed off, and in a bad mood.  What a bunch of *** (expletive deleted).

In particular, the head janitor Kestryll is a troglodyte.  You know what makes me really mad: Once, a long time ago, I sent Paul a check, to help pay for the upkeep of Calguns.  As much as the small band of brothers that forms the core of Calguns and the CGF has done good things for gun rights in California, it is time to shut the discussion forum down.  The way people are using it as a springboard to spread hate around, it can not possibly do anything good for gun rights.  I'm hoping Bill, Gene, or Ben are reading along here.

Disgusting.

To think that last Friday I was seriously considering going over to the post-thanksgiving-day shoot-n-q, and wear a treelogger sticker there.  Now I rather wish to be at least 20 miles away from any Calguns member.

Time to donate $1000 to the Brady organization, not because I agree with them on anything, just because I'm mad at the pro-gun crowd, and their cave man behavior.

Yes, Kestryl is a Fundie wingnut, and he is anything but fair in his dealings with anything touching on his Fundie wingnuttery.  I've seen a couple situations where someone blatantly attacked some religion or other that wasn't "Christianity" (the quotes are because "Christianity" as practiced by American wingnuts bears no resemblance at all to the ministry of Jesus Christ) and Kestryl would let the discussion slide until some troublemaker pointed out similarities between Christianity and the religion being attacked, and Kestryl would start whining about religious attacks and deploying the banhammer.

A lot of these fundie tards really can't understand that there are other religions out there that have just as much standing among the objective-minded (and even among non-fundie coreligionists, such as Episcopal ministers) as brainless mouth-breathing knuckle-dragging Christian fundamentalism.

Bill Weiss walks a fine line.  On the one hand, he's one of the driving personalities behind Calguns and the Foundation; on the other, he has no use at all for Christian wingnuts and indeed often complains how the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party (which Kestryl proudly represents) makes the entire Party a pariah in California.  Must be some interesting conversations when the Foundation board sit around a table and discuss strategy.

Hopi wrote:

Bill W., Gene H., and Oaklander know how to win. I would bet they drive the real world strategy.

Having met two of the three personally (albeit quickly), and having communicated via personal e-mail and on the web with all of them, I highly respect them, and applaud them for what they do for an important civil right: the right to have the hobby of lobbing small pieces of lead in the direction of one's choosing.  And I'm proud of having done a few small thing in helping out in that effort.

However, the bedmates they keep are disgusting (and I obviously mean "bed" tongue-in-cheek).  I won't even bother to explain why they are disgusting, my views on that are well documented here.

I wonder: If (A) Calguns and similar discussion forums were shut down, because they are mostly platforms for wingnuts with no clue to spread hate, and reaffirm each other, and (B) the NRA were sent to Siberia, where its role as the fifth column of the republican party and its rough touch in public relations could be ignored, and (C) the body politic simply ignored the lunatic raving from the right-wing end, aided by the correct-thinking gun people (which means: us) working to dampen the noise coming from the wingnuts, and (D) people like Bill, Gene, Oaklander, the CalNRA lobbyists etc. continued their quiet work towards gun rights, through vehicles like the Calguns Foundation: Wouldn't be much better off?

A good starting point would be to make sure sites like Arfcom and Calguns are not indexed by the major search engines (which is easy to turn off).  I don't want average citizens finding Calguns when google'ing for some gun-related or gunlaw-related term, because the crap they'll find posted there can only scare the wits out of average people.  I don't want the public to get the impression that mainstream gun culture is violent, xenophobic, anti-government, and devoid of reason.  Because when I go to the range, I find that most gun people are friendly, tolerant, helpful, and pretty smart, so I know that stuff like the OffTopic discussions on Calguns do not represent the mainstream.

Today on CalGuns, Bill posted how he's figure out how to defeat the California "safe" handgun roster. Gene posted the date for Nordyke, and additionally through his usual magic, posted original copies of 2 internal LE memos documenting open carry legality. Meanwhile, Kestryl deleted my counter-arguments to his in a liberal-bashing thread. A typical day on CalGuns. Very great stuff mixed with the horrible.

MudCamper wrote:

Meanwhile, Kestryl deleted my counter-arguments to his in a liberal-bashing thread. A typical day on CalGuns.

What an asshole.

I feel so sorry for you guys.  All so thoughtful and just wanting to express fair opinion and it's getting stopped!  Isn't what calguns is complaining about that in California, their viewpoint is being suppressed?  Then they do the same thing.  How can they prove their points (I agree with many of them) if they won't have open discussions?