Archive for the 'Media' Category

This is a trend, one that doesn’t surprise me in the least.  Nor should it surprise you.

So here’s the deal, Late Boy Scout.  The bloodthirsty, Soros-funded, liberty-hating Bolsheviks who work for Google-YouTube won’t explain it to you or anyone else because it would betray the fact that the decisions are capricious and designed with one thing in mind.

The destruction of liberty and freedom.  They won’t stop until you and everyone who owns a firearm are in a reeducation camp.

It’s really a shame that the rest of us are late to the game when it comes to having a viable competitor to YouTube.  I guess it has to do with naivety or laziness.

Abigail Hauslohner at The Washington Post:

Fabian Rodriguez was cradling his new rifle when he stopped at one of the gun-show booths to purchase a $5 chicken fajita MRE.

The “Meal Ready to Eat” is a mainstay for troops on combat missions. But Rodriguez, a 28-year-old San Antonio native who sells auto paint for a living, wasn’t going anywhere that would require one.

Fabian Rodriguez, 28, tries out his new AR-15 rifle at a shooting range in San Antonio.

“I like them,” he said. “Well, I like watching reviews of them. That’s something people do online, like, open them up and do taste tests.”

Rodriguez, who wears his handlebar mustache slicked into points and never leaves home without his cowboy boots, had come to the gun show to buy his first AR-15, a variant model of the M-16 and M-4 assault rifles that are used by the military, and currently the most popular rifle on the market.

[ … ]

The expanse of tables before him display AR-15s, AK-47s and every other sort of assault-style rifle; hefty shotguns and sleek, modern hunting rifles; handguns that range from high caliber Smith & Wessons to tiny Derringer guns that fit in the palm of your hand.

He makes his way past boxes of ammunition, T-shirts that say things like “CNN IS FAKE NEWS,” and a $1,900 Magnum Desert Eagle that he immediately recognizes as the gun Angelina Jolie carried in the movie “Tomb Raider.” “That specific one she used in the movie was 50-caliber, which is humongous,” he says.

He finds a strap for his AR, and a quick-disconnect for the strap. He inquires about left-handed adjustments and revisits the table where yesterday he purchased an AR-15 magazine engraved with the “Don’t tread on me” snake logo, just like the one pictured on the worn leather wallet that he is now again removing from his pocket.

“Can I still get that discount if I bought one yesterday?” he asks the vendor.

“Yeah, the two for $35?”

Rodriguez nods.

“I remember you,” the vendor adds, as Rodriguez hands him the cash for another magazine, this one engraved with the words, “You can’t protect the First without the Second.

[ … ]

The NSSF, an association of gun manufacturers and sellers — which several years ago started calling ARs “modern sporting rifles” — likes to hype the idea of the AR’s versatility as the key to its appeal: a gun for hunting, home security and whatever else you might need.

David Chipman, who used to carry an AR-15 for his job as a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, thinks there’s more to it.

“I would compare it to the same reason Americans might want a muscle car or enjoy a muscle car: It’s American-made, it has outsized power,” said Chipman, who left ATF after a 25-year career and now serves as a senior policy adviser to the gun-control advocacy group Giffords.

There’s a sort of “X-Game-type sensibility” to it, he said, a fixture of “American culture that I see most often with men.”

Rodriguez encounters plenty of skeptics in addition to his mother who ask him why anyone would need so many guns, particularly a semiautomatic rifle like an AR-15 — a gun that can fire 45 high-velocity rounds per minute, bullets that travel so fast that their shock waves mimic an explosion as they enter a body.

His honest answer: He doesn’t need them.

He wants them because he enjoys them, and the Constitution gives him the right to have them.

“I know I don’t need it,” he says of the AR-15. “The revolver, statistically speaking, is more than enough to defend myself.”

But it’s frustrating when people ask him this, because that’s not the point.

The point is that the Second Amendment protects his right to bear arms, whatever and however many he wants, as a guard against tyranny.

Hmm … there’s nothing comparable to getting an “authority” like a former ATF agent to say that there’s some mystique about the gun, alluring, tempting, tantalizing, beckoning people who otherwise wouldn’t want them to come, come, come to me, dear soul, and shoot me.  I can make your life complete.

Good God, what claptrap.  It’s as if Abigail has gone on a quest to hunt the snark, to find the great unwashed dirt people who eat beef, wear cowboy boots and hats, work an hourly job, get their hands dirty, run tooling equipment, run horses and cattle, drive trucks, and so on the list could go.  She’s heard that such people exist, but never actually met one inside the beltway.

Ooo … an expanse of tables with guns and ammo, tee shirts, and stupid bumper stickers.  And the allure and beckon of guns and money exchanging hands.  It’s as if there is actually private enterprise going on in America.

Give me a call, honey.  I can take you up to where they make corn liquor and don’t take kindly to FedGov sticking their nose around.  And you can shoot an AR-15 too.  Wouldn’t you enjoy that?  It’s the next logical step for you.

Seriously, gun owners know the first rule of gun club, which is that you don’t talk about gun club to the MSM.  That’s why gun data on ownership is so crappy.  Most gun owners aren’t going to talk, or if they do, they aren’t going to tell the truth.  Every now and then a MSM writer finds a gullible dunce like this to follow around.

Remember folks, the first rule of gun club is that you don’t talk about gun club to the MSM.  You only talk about gun club to make other gun owners among the potential recruits.

Those who follow firearms, shooting, and tactical channels on YouTube know about the travails of Hickok45 on YouTube.  Venerable and old school, Hickok45 tests and comments on firearms manufacturers send him.  Sometimes he shoots his own firearms, but always, he shoots, comments and often provides history and mechanical commentary on the machines he is using.  Sometimes it is with admiration, sometimes slight disdain, but always honest and interesting.

Hickok45 met with disapproval from some redditors when he supported the NRA in light of the compromises the NRA recommended (e.g., bump stocks, enhanced background checks), but being a former LEO and old school like he is, I wouldn’t have expected anything else from him.  Just as interesting to me is Jeff Quinn of Gunblast, especially when shooting and commenting on revolvers, but always interesting.

Hickok45 met with several bans on YouTube for promoting products, but he never really did that and always appealed the decision, mostly meeting with reinstatement by those who run YouTube.  But all of these folks may need to find new homes.

Full30: I received an email from my Google/YouTube rep at 9:30pm tonight. He requested an emergency meeting tomorrow to discuss YouTube’s new policies regarding firearms content.

This is really bad. Please read this carefully and a couple of times, and let it sink in. 1/3rd of my videos or more will need to be removed. If you don’t have them removed in 30 days, your channel will be deleted for policy violations.

I wish this were a joke. It’s not. I feel horrible for reloading channels or NFA channels. Showing how to make ammo or even showing the installation of a silencer is prohibited. Hell, showing the use of a magazine larger than 30 rounds is prohibited! Belt feds are a no go.

I’ll try to find out as much as I can from my rep tomorrow. I mean, are legal machine guns and silencers being demonstrated really going to get us account strikes now?

Please read this guys… I’m in shock, but then I knew this day wold come. It looks like it’s here in 30 days. I’m at a total loss for words. ~Tim

Redditors are up in arms, because the Google guidance says the following.

“YouTube prohibits certain kinds of content featuring firearms. Specifically, we don’t allow content that:

Intends to sell firearms or certain firearms accessories through direct sales (e.g., private sales by individuals) or links to sites that sell these items.

These accessories include but may not be limited to accessories that enable a firearm to simulate automatic fire or convert a firearm to automatic fire (e.g., bump stocks, gatling triggers, drop-in auto sears, conversion kits), and high capacity magazines (i.e., magazines or belts carrying more than 30 rounds).

Provides instructions on manufacturing a firearm, ammunition, high capacity magazine, homemade silencers/suppressors, or certain firearms accessories such as those listed above. This also includes instructions on how to convert a firearm to automatic or simulated automatic firing capabilities.Shows users how to install the above-mentioned accessories or modifications.”

“Manufacturing a firearm.”  Reddit understands that this means if you teach someone to field strip an AR-15 or replace a bolt carrier group and check head space (Brownells), you fall into this category.  If you comment positively about a particular firearm, part, accessory, or manufacturer, you fall into these categories.

Their temporary answer is to start downloading targeted videos.  But make no mistake about it, they’re pissed off.  There is also no mistaking the fact that at the moment, there is no replacement for the information and firearms channels on YouTube.

This could possibly effect other related videos such as tactical instruction where firearms are discussed, such as with Kyle Lamb, Travis Haley, Chris Costa, and John Lovell.

I’ve long thought that an alternative needed to be developed to YouTube other than Live Leak, but to date there is nothing.  Suffice it to say that the progressives at Google are winning this battle.  What happens in the longer term war will be up to someone other than Google.

You might have noticed that I rarely embed or even link YouTube videos any more.  I’ve made my choice – has the rest of America?

CNN is ISIS.  So here’s a quick note to CNN.  Attack me over this meme.  Go ahead.  Make my day.  Doxx me.  I dare you.  I’d appreciate the traffic it sends my way.  You don’t scare me one damn little bit.

Source

See also WRSA.

By now most readers have heard about Bob Owens passing away.  Apparently he was very troubled and yet didn’t seek help.  Folks, please seek help when things seem this bad.

He leaves behind family, and for this I’m very sorry and hate to see what happened today.  Col. Douglas Mortimer (reader) and others have exchanged mail with me on this, and while there are very mixed emotions, including my own, in my opinion there is no mortal sin.  I’m not Roman Catholic.  When Jesus paid it all on the cross in the vicarious atonement, that means all, sins past, present and future for His chosen people.  If Bob knew Christ, he is with the savior as we speak.

Bob was an enigma wrapped inside a riddle, and I never quite knew what he was going to say or what position he was going to take.  He and I butted heads on open carry and well as other things.  That doesn’t diminish his life’s work, and I simply don’t take disagreements that seriously.  Life is too short to lose friends over disagreements.

I don’t believe in the phrase “rest in peace” (RIP).  There is work in heaven, just without the sweat of the brow.  I hope Bob is working and worshipping right now.

New York Post:

A conservative columnist who was suspended by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after she defended the National Rifle Association from comparisons to ISIS fired back with her resignation and a series of targeted tweets.

The newspaper on Friday suspended Stacy Washington after a column entitled “Guns and the Media” disputed an anti-NRA article that argued since more Americans die from guns than from ISIS, the Second Amendment advocacy group is the greater danger.

[ … ]

“Her active promotional activities and professional association with the National Rifle Association represented an unacceptable conflict of interest in her most recent column, which resulted in our suspension of her work,” Tod Robberson, the Post-Dispatch’s editorial page editor, wrote in a response to Washington’s suspension and quitting.

Robberson added: “Columnists are expected to fully disclose conflicts of interest when writing about topics where such a conflict might arise. We apply this standard regardless of the lobbying or advocacy group being written about in a column.”

[ … ]

“I’m not ashamed that I’m an NRA supporter, a Bible-thumper, that I love Jesus Christ. I’m all the way out there. There’s nothing else that I can do to articulate my perspective any more clearly on where I stand.”

So let’s get this straight, “Tod.”  Stacy wasn’t being paid by anyone but you.  Her views are simply that – her views.  You suspended her because of her views, and you know it.  You’re just a cowardly liar.  I have no respect for you because of that.  But since you suspend people who have views, I presume you suspended all Hillary Clinton supporters from the newspaper, right?  Oh, no, I see, you didn’t actually do that, did you?  No, because you’re a liar.

It’s an interesting commentary, though, in that Stacy, in addition to being a charming woman and one to whom you should listen, is more of a man than you are.  Good God.  What kind of metrosexual, effeminate, pathetic “men” do they raise in your neck of the woods anyway?

As for Stacy, don’t worry.  You’ll land on your feet and you’ll be better off without them.  They suck anyway.  I’ve noticed that after blogging for eleven years.

David Codrea:

Bottom line: It wasn’t for moral reasons, like it might inspire more violence, terror and misery. The simple truth is, they got punked. The author of the article wasn’t a real leftist spouting the requisite subversive and hateful inanities. It was a setup, an intentionally outrageous submission from a fake contributor who succeeded in appealing to HuffPo’s elitist strain of privileged “progressivism” and getting the piece published in a forum that would reach the world.

Like Neil Young got owned by Lynyrd Skynyrd in “Sweet Home Alabama,” which was an answer to his “Southern Man,” the Huffington Post got owned by a fake commentary.

But Neil Young was actually sorry he ever published Southern Man and admitted that Lynyrd Skynyrd had a point (despite laughable claims that somehow they really agreed on things – I remember the details).  Huffington Post wanted all of this to be true and sincere, but frankly got embarrassed, not by the subject, but the fakery.

So read part of the commentary for yourself and decide whether Huffington Post appreciates white men: “If white men no longer had the vote, the progressive cause would be strengthened. It would not be necessary to deny white men indefinitely — the denial of the vote to white men for 20 years (just less than a generation) would go some way to seeing a decline in the influence of reactionary and neo-liberal ideology in the world,” it continued, adding that although “it may be unfair . . . a moratorium on the franchise for white males for a period of between 20 and 30 years is a small price to pay for the pain inflicted by white males on others.”

Yes, just like Google (who owns YouTube), Twitter, Disqus, the MSM, college professors, corporate leadership and just about everybody else in power.  Next question.

David Codrea:

Then, one idea I haven’t seen explored (beyond me suggesting it) is to use “the enemy’s” own tactics against him. The small “l” libertarian in me says social media giants are private enterprises, and if we don’t like the way they operate, we should go our separate ways. That does not account for the tremendous influence these corporations have on government actions and policies, which introduces coercive potential into the voluntary associations.

I think this is the best approach.  It’s what I have attempted to do with Disqus comments.  If readers will notice, I’ve dumped Disqus and gone back to something simpler.  For a test period we had something like it with responses, but we’ve hopefully got something similar or better in the works.

Transitioning away from things like this isn’t easy.  We’ve also transferred web hosts from Media Temple to another, because Media Temple had started to gouge me on prices.  Why did they do that?  I don’t know.  I also know that my problems with Disqus left the theoretical and entered the practical when they moderated a commenter’s comment and I couldn’t approve it.  It didn’t show up in the comments, but I saw it as site owner, although in Disqus there was nothing to approve.  Disqus left it impossible for me to approve the comment.

I don’t use Facebook and have no account, and don’t do Twitter.  Perhaps that’s one of the reasons for low visits compared to similar blogs (“yea, blame it on social media rather than your own writing you putz” – the couch).  Either way, until we begin to divorce ourselves from the censoring censors, they will keep censoring us.

And before I forget it, I share David’s dislike of The Firearm Blog’s claim that it’s not politics, only guns.  Sure it is.  I’ve seen exceptions to that rule, and they make them when it’s convenient.  They ought to defenestrate the entire rule and blog on whatever they want.  This is only going to get worse with time.  Be prepared for more censorship with the ever increasing war on guns and traditional culture.

Not that my readers need any introduction to the SPLC, but I wanted to go around the traffic circle one more time and remind you of something I noted a few weeks back.

David Codrea had a post where he linked the new Google guidelines for identifying “offensive” search results.  Right there on page 44, we read this.

Reputation research is important for identifying websites which promote hate and violence. The Pew Research Center, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Southern Poverty Law Center are some reputable sources that can be used for reputation research.

“Reputable.”  I needn’t waste my time debunking this crap.  My readers know better.  Hey, what do you think Mike Vanderboegh would say about this if he was still alive?  I’m smiling just thinking about it.