Gun Blogging Etiquette

I’ve noticed that it looking like Tom King is censoring some posts by anti-gun folks over on his blog. I should note that I have no problem with bloggers deleting posts that are threatening or just plain trolling, and banning commenters on that basis, but the prejudice against doing that should be very high. I am worried specifically about this:

For the record, Tom King censored a link to VPC which discussed FOPA and how the NRA was trying to reinstitute its provisions.

Tom King thinks the link is suspect even though the NRA fully admits to sponsoring FOPA or the McClure/Volkmer bill.

Tom then posts again clarifying:

I intend to run this as an open forum with all views allowed as long as they are coherent, tasteful and based in fact. If you post a statement or statistic that is suspect, I’ll ask for verification before posting it. I will not deal in innuendo, hysterics or cliche. Those are the rules on this blog follow them or leave.

Emphasis mine. Now, I will say that it’s Tom’s sandbox, and he can definitely set any rules he wants for his blog. But we don’t do things like this in the gun blogosphere. Let them post their hysterics, cliches, and faulty data, an let our people tear it apart. That’s how it works. If Tom wants to be taken seriously as a gun blogger, you have two choices really; allow a free comment section with a very very strong prejudice against censorship, or close comments. I would recommend against the latter.

I’m afraid of Tom keeps censoring anti-gun views, even if, in his view, their facts are wrong (I would hardly disagree), I’m going to have to suggest to all my readers and fellow bloggers that we ignore him.

We’ve spent a lot of time, here in the pro-gun blogosphere, trying to build a reputation of being willing to debate the anti-gun people on the merits of their arguments, and they’ve lost every time. By censoring links because you don’t like the data, you undermine what the rest of us are trying to accomplish, and lower us to the level of the anti-gunners, and I simply can’t abide by that.

UPDATE: Tom King responds to our posts. Like I said, your blog, you’re rules. I don’t argue with that. But I still think letting them be boneheads, out in public for all to see, is the best policy.

UPDATE: Left rudder thinks it’s proof that we’re not interesting in Reasoned Discourse^TM. If that’s the case, why am I, and one of the top gun blogs, criticizing Tom for it then?