For well over a decade, the Guns Save Life website has welcomed comments on our stories. We’ve had many tens of thousands of comments over the years which has brought a lot of valuable perspectives, analysis and opposing viewpoints to the site. Once in a blue moon, we’ll get some spam, or a racist, or a hater. But usually our members, guests and visitors act with decorum.
We don’t mind the haters, either.
We do mind people who disparage whole classes of people and act like, well, insolent adult children. Or insurrectionists. “Ken” has worn out his welcome here. He’s a decent guy many days. Other days, he has nothing but profanity for the men and women who help maintain law and order in our society.
You don’t have to like cops all the time here. You don’t have to like them at all. But if you want to disparage them all in the crudest possible terms as Ken does despite warnings and a couple of time-outs over the last five or ten years, you might find a more appropriate audience at the I Hate Cops! Facebook group. Or maybe at Black Lives Matter or Antifa’s respective websites.
We also mind people who come into our website to badmouth us, our people and our organization. “Phil” has done this a lot lately. He was warned. He caught a time out. And he persisted.
If I had to guess, he has a relationship (employment, friendship or otherwise) with the people at High Caliber range in Urbana. Yeah, the range that took a 19-year-old’s handgun and wouldn’t return it and threatened to call the police because some poorly trained clerk thought that possession of a handgun by an under-21 was illegal in Illinois.
Last time I was there, the range that won’t let you take any photos – even of newbies experiencing shooting for the first time. Which is actually difficult because they run first-time patrons through a skills assessment before they can shoot, which probably knocks out first-time shooting opportunities for some.
Anyway, the young man got his guns back and the then-owner assured me nothing like that would ever happen again. The young man has finished college and is now a police officer, but that day proved very stressful for him. And I’m pretty sure he hasn’t been back to “High” Caliber.
Furthermore, in a pair of posts, Phil likened High Caliber’s training program to that of Mas Ayoob, Clint Smith and others I’ve attended and merely heard about. That’s as laughable as saying Joe Biden is as good of a gun instructor as Mas Ayoob.
In the next breath, good old Phil’s badmouthing Guns Save Life and GSL Defense Training’s instruction as third-rate. I don’t know if someone from GSL took Phil’s girlfriend back in high school or what happened, but Phil’s been hounding our site with multiple problematic and disruptive comments a day.
Our members are done with Phil’s poison. And Ken’s. Gun rights work is hard enough. We don’t need chairborne rangers, society’s misfits and other dedicated trouble-makers to corrode our good name, our outstanding people and our dedication to advocacy for your right to defend yourself.
To ensure this problem is solved permanently, we’ve switched comments to require approval before they become public.
We welcome your comments, analysis – even criticism. We really do. We’ll even publish hate mail and threats. (We especially enjoy those!)
But we have a near-zero tolerance for racists, bigots and insurgents.
This regular appreciates you canning Ken. He was obnoxious some time ago. This year he has been a complete hemorrhoid.
It is funny that you and I got a letter complaining about criticising Democrats so much since Dems hold supermajorities in both houses in Illinois. Our critic complained we did not condemn R’s for anything. Well, if these two YoYos were R’s, then we kicked out some R’s.
John I am sorry you had to do this. But we cannot have this kind of stuff on the site.
Well said and expressed John, I remember early on all comments were “approved” before being displayed and thought it was a good system, didn’t realize when it changed to “free rein”, but it was ok until some abused the access to disparage others constantly.
I apologize for/to anybody that were offended (except “ken” or “phil”
) by some of my comments but I had to counter “ken’s” blatant hatred, he “tripped my trigger” with his hatred and derogatory comments, glad he is gone. He brought out a “darkness” in me I didn’t like.
As it should be, with the loose digits in some peoples minds these days.
As my elders have said before, if you can’t say something nice, or at least not racist or crude, don’t say anything at all.
I have held down the backspace key many more times than I want to admit, because it is better to be thought an idiot, than to open ones mouth and eliminate all doubt!
And for what it’s worth, I have assisted GSL training classes several times, and known them as caring very thorough Instructors that give their students one of the best classes out there. I have never heard a complaint from a student, and consider some of the prior students to be good friends years later.
off topic:
“keep owa name out yo’ mouf’
said mayor l. lootfool
GSL is as good as it gets. This will help keep it that way!
Thank you.
Good call John. After reading the many posters in the short time I could access the submissions database, I had to delete many excessively arrogant, ignorant or otherwise disgusting inappropriate comments. Plus this will clean up the ones that are clearly spam bot program text that was off-the-wall & not anywhere close to a real person post.
Too bad it takes time to do but filtering garbage in so it doesn’t become garbage out is needed in today’s educational diversity.