I can’t be too sure, but I’m wondering if this guy is trying to fill the niche left by Gun Law News retiring from the daily update. If that’s the case, we wish him well. It’s a lot of work, but a great service to the community.
Category: Blogs
That’s Quite a lot of Ammonium Nitrate
It’s a good thing Joe has a license form the ATF, because that’s enough fertilizer to get anyone on a terrorist watch list!
Also, Joe’s daughter is smoking hot too, which makes me feel old, when I realize that she was probably not even in kindergarten when I graduated from high school :) Â The one thing I really hated about turning 30 was realizing that most college chicks would think of me as an old guy.
Good thing Bitter isn’t in college anymore :)
Six Month Blogoversary
As of Today, it has been six months since I inaugurated this blog with my very first post of taking my friend Loretta shooting.  It would seem odd that I started this blog to impress Bitter, but my first post was taking another chick shooting.  But it actually makes sense if you know the context. In the intervening time, I’ve discovered a few things:
- Success or failure depends on getting links. The best way to get links is to link to others, and comment on their blogs.  I commented on Bitter’s blog and SayUncle long before I started Snowflakes in Hell, and they were instrumental in helping me get started.
- Blogging takes up a lot of time at first, but less as you get used to doing it.
- Being able to type 80-90 words per minute is both a blessing and a curse. You can punch out long posts much faster, but it means it’s easy to get out long posts, and so you do it more.
- From reading blogs, I think you can either be prolific and terse, or post essays sparingly. I tend to start skimming blogs that write too many essays. I probably get a bit out of hand with that myself sometimes.
It’s good to be passing the six month mark.  Thanks to everyone who reads and comments. You guys are the reason I keep doing it.
New Blogroll Additions
I’ve been participating in the e-postal matches. You should too. It’s a lot of fun to compete against other bloggers, even if you come at the end of the pack. You probably won’t beat this guy though, I think he spends more time at the range than I can even dream of.
He added me just as I was about to do a blogroll addition, so I figured I’d reciprocate. He’s another Knoxville blogger. Knoxville seems to be the blogging capital of the world.
In only a few days, he’s really impressed me with his content. Most of us are aware of his problems with the BATFE. I really hope he can manage to get through his ordeal with his business still in tact. You’d swear the ATF were working under somebody like Bill Clinton rather than a “pro-gun” Republican. Bush’s failure to get this agency under control has been a big slap in the face to the gun rights community.
Another Pennsylvania guy. Been an occasional reader for a while, becoming a more regular reader.
More Pennsylvania bloggers. I may have to create a special category for them at some point.
We all owe a lot to John’s research.Â
I’m sure there are others out there I should add. If you feel left out, let me know, and maybe I’ll get you in on the next cycle.
Gun Blog Accidents
Two of our community have been taken down for the count. http://www.pagunblog.com/thebitchgirls and http://www.countertopchronicles.com are both offline currently because Bitter was trying to do some housekeeping by deleting some old databases and it seemed to scrozzle every blog she had registered.
UPDATE: I suddenly realized how she could fix the problem. Looks like they are both in the process of coming back up. There are certainly advantages to doing your own hosting, but Bitter’s blog can’t be taken down by a power outage :)
The Importance of Civility
We linked yesterday to a blog in this post. Well, it looks like he’s changed his tune. This is a good example of what civil dialog can bring, when we are armed with facts and treat our opponents as reasonable people.  Real good work on the part of my readers.
It’s rare that someone actually is willing to admit defeat, and I admire someone who can admit that maybe they didn’t know as much as they thought they did. Most of the time, we may not change minds. But it’s important to have the dialog. This is how you keep a republic healthy, and advance the political debate.
I wish I could take credit for most of the dude’s traffic, but SayUncle and Jeff Soyer had a lot to do with it too :)
Sad
Publicola is quitting blogging. It’s good to know that I wasn’t the only person who was crazy enough to start a blog to impress a chick. I have no plans of quitting blogging, but I understand how people could get burnt out. It can be time consuming, draining, and sometimes you just feel completely uninspired.
Al Gore Missed the Boat
Kevin has a fisking of Al Gore’s complaint that rational debate has fallen by the wayside. While I can sympathize with Gore over the banality of the media, what he doesn’t seem to get is that we have a wonderful conversation going on here in the blogosphere. He sees his invention of the Internet has a potential remedy for this malaise, but fails to realize the party has already started without him. So where’s your blog Al Gore? We’re here, and ready to talk.
Argh!
For some reason we had a power failure, and it seems the host can’t keep time straight when it reboots for some reason. I expect this will screw Bloglines up for the next week, because their software can’t handle posts appearing in the future. It will soon be time to replace the server with something more reliable.
Left’s Ideas on Constitutional Rights
I sometimes wander across other Pennsylvania bloggers in the course of my readings, and occasionally feel like pointing out something else. I agree with many of the sentiments in this fairly well written post, but one stands out to this libertarian:
My biggest concern with Nutter has been his “stop & frisk” proposal, Nutter’s ‘stop & frisk’ emerges as flash point. I’m not quarreling with the fact that a crisis situation exists in Philly, which needs to be dealt with, based upon the gun violence that has made Philly the Baghdad of the United States. I’m just not crazy about any infringement of our constitutional rights, whether it originates from the left or the right.
As I’ve written here before, I have issues with Nutter’s “Stop and Frisk” policy. But I find this blogger’s disdain for gun owners and support of gun control rather contradictory for someone who is concerned about constitutional rights.
She also brings up the issue involving State Rep Cruz and Williams, which I have previously condemned here, here, and finally here. I would point out, though, that every political movement has it’s crazies, and most of us aren’t nuts. I would encourage folks out there who are sympathetic to this bloggers views to meet some gun owners. You might find we’re not monolithically right wing people. Our beliefs and politics span the political spectrum. I am not a religious man. I support legalized abortion. I support allowing gays to marry. I agree with this blogger that Santorum had to go, despite his strong support of our second amendment rights. I’ve met plenty of other gun owners who are more progressive than I am. But we all do share a common belief that the right to keep and bear arms is an important constitutional liberty, and ought to be treated equally to the others, and not with disdain and scorn. Is that too much to ask from some elements of the left?