MacGyver

The thing about Starbuck's letter, and their public posting of it, is that it is literally a shot across gun owners' bows.    They're giving us another chance - when they were likely advised to just post - because they just want to sell you a cup of coffee and a scone.  With their letter, they're broadcasting that they're willing to post - but would rather not force the issue.  Erik is right.  All open carriers are not the problem.  But a few of them are in a major way.   And there's the rub.  There's no winning hearts and minds here.  A gun is a tool used to do one thing - kill.  Maybe it's to protect your family.  Great.  Maybe it's to provide food for you table.  Awesome.  Maybe it's to keep the government off of your front porch.  Okay.  But, when a non-gun person looks at a person they don't know carrying a gun openly, they see a person who wants to kill somebody and today might be the day.  You might have some conversations with folks.  But regardless of whether or not the conversations end well, they all started out of fear - the fear that you might do something crazy with that gun.  You're not going to win.  Ever.   Our "rights" as gun owners have expanded more in the last 20 years than they have in the last century and a half.  You have more ability to carry today than any of us have had in our lifetimes.  And, those abilities are still expanding.  Ask anyone in Illinois 10 years ago if they'd ever be able to carry a gun to protect their families.  Despite that, however, individual people can screw that up.   The thing about strapping on a weapon, is that the moment you choose to do so, you either become an asset to society or a liability.  And, your actions speak for all of us collectively.  You do something stupid with that gun - and you paint us all in a poor light.  There's no place in civil society for a person to walk into Starbucks with a shotgun.  Your individual actions have just made it harder for all of us.  That's why so many of us get upset about this.  It's not about ceding our rights.  It's about selfish people doing stupid things that cost us all.

you know, I'll have to ask her if she knows who that is. Is he even on anymore, even in syndication? We're more of a Disney channel family - at least for the few hours cartoons are on and they may have the opportunity to watch TV. I never thought I would say it as a parent, but their lack of commercials for anything but other Disney cartoons during that time block is what gets them a pass.

Y'all are going to get my soapbox out before the day's over.    This is one that gets me riled up, and I wish that we could get people to actually put down their phones long enough to care.  Mind you, if I get going on it, I'll probably wind up having to report myself or something :)

Their double wall stainless travel cups are worth every penny.  I don't know if they put nuclear waste in between the layers or what, but I can make coffee at 0630 and it might be cool enough not to burn my tongue by 0900 or so.

Government sponsored monopoly and fiber optic?  Wow!  This is just too good when you reconcile that with stuff like PRISM.  I bet they don't even have to go to court.  They just build the splitter going to the NSA right into the system...   Not that you're apparently any better off with your local independent ISP.  The government has clearly shown that they can get that data as well even without the ISP's knowledge.

You can actually really tell just how much Starbucks just wants to sell a cup of coffee by their response. They could have very easily gone and posted their stores. Howard Schultz and his management team in all reality probably backed away from the advice they received from their counsel to post their stores. Why? They just want to sell a cup of coffee. That said, I'd bet anyone their favorite Starbucks fruity drink that we don't make it until Christmas without them being posted. The "I'm going to jam my 2nd Amendment rights down your damn throat" folks are going to see to that. If I win, I guess we'll have to get that drink at the drive thru.

Jay,   I didn't have a single member in mind when I composed the original post.  When I feel there's a need to call someone out individually, I'll do exactly that, but privately.   I'm asking folks to be mindful of their tone in whatever they post - but mentioned law enforcement here, as it's been a subject of a lot of the unduly negative posts of late.  The tipping point that caused me to write the post was being questioned by a couple of new members with whom I have relationships about the anti law enforcement tone.  They're new shooters and weren't able to reconcile how one group that carries guns can be so spiteful towards another group that carries guns.  They weren't complaining - they were seeking some clarification.  What struck me in both of the conversations was that if that was the first observation a new member to our site has, and it had enough of an impact to cause them to ask me about that instead of the myriad other new shooter questions they could ask, then we have an issue that needs to be addressed.   You won't find a bigger proponent of small government than me.  I can't call myself a "L"ibertarian, because I think that term has been coopted by people who aren't really sure what they believe.  But, we aren't trying to stifle any particular voices - unless, again you're only posting something to poke the proverbial hornet's nest and get people stirred up.    So long as anyone is bringing intelligent discourse to the table, we won't have a problem. 

Greg, please hear me say that this thread was not aimed at anyone.  Period.   Rather, we're in a pretty politically charged time, and the staff thought that we could all back away from the cliff with our rhetoric a little bit. 

Yet.  Give the "pro-2A" guys a week or so to force their hand.

Eric, my six year old saw your Avatar on my iPad last night and commented, that man looks really angry...   I couldn't quite explain to her that the picture wasn't really you :)

I've got a CTR on my 10.5" .458 SOCOM right now.  It's light and fast to come on target.  Plus, as a bonus, you get a free Magpul tattoo with every shot!   It's not really that bad.  It's not like you're firing hundreds of rounds through it.

I commonly edit posts to remove language, offensive links, and personal information that someone may not want shared.  As a general rule, when I do this, I leave the "edited by" comment visible, and leave a reason.   I figure if it was my post, I'd rather have it cleaned up than removed altogether.  The poster always retains the right to go back in and re-express themselves in a more appropriate manner.

I think I can get that squared away.  Good idea.

Register a complaint around here and you're likely to die of old age before we cede to your list of demands. This was absolutely not driven by complaints. As I said in the original post, it's us as a staff keeping our fingers on the pulse of the community and noticing something off. We've got a good thing here that we don't particularly want to see screwed up. We thought posting some guidance as opposed to making hard and fast rule changes in the TOS would be more than sufficient for the vast majority of our membership.

Here's the thing, y'all. We're not trying to ban any topic. Nor are we saying you have to be pro law enforcement. Lord knows I'm critical of a lot that's going on right now, and I love to discuss issues big and small. But, if you're going to engage in a discussion, make sure you're actually adding to the debate. Do that and you're fine. If a thread devolves, we'll lock it. We don't do this very much now, and I don't expect to going forward. My original post was just giving you guys some insight into how we're looking at things as moderators.

All people need to do is ask whether or not they're adding to the discussion and the community or distracting from it. If the answer is the latter, then our general position is that they either need better rhetoric, a better position or should simply refrain from posting.

The very fact that you can't type his name in without having voldemort substituted in should tell you exactly how we feel about giving this guy another second of airtime.

Exactly.

I've banned more than one person for not being able to refer to gay people without the use of a slur.  There's a famous post by one of our moderating team relating to the tendency to profile people who may look middle eastern and the problems associated with it.    The DNC doesn't need our help.  They've yet to meet a sure thing that they can't screw up.   But your point stands.  We can discuss big issues.  We've got a lot of diverse opinions.  But, if you're just here to stir stuff up, we're going to take notice because it's affecting the community at large.

One of the great draws to this site from my perspective is that it doesn't need a lot of moderating.  I probably make as many administrative actions as anyone, and I bet I've not made a dozen this year.  This community does a pretty good job of policing itself.   But, of late, we've noticed a few people just posting things to stir people up.  It's causing discord, and that's what tells me that we to be more involved than we typically are.    I get it that we live in a stressful time.  We're in a politically charged, bipolar world.  While there really are a lot of people with moderate opinions, all of the voices are at the extreme ends of the spectrum.    And it's certainly not just TGO - I was proxy to a conversation the other day with a bunch of kids.  They were discussing who they would look for if they got lost.  Out of 20 of them, not one said a police officer.  When someone asked if they might look for a police officer, several of them immediately shook their heads, no.    I could certainly put together a completely concrete, "non-arbitrary" list of rules for posting about law enforcement.  But, that's our intent.  We're just trying to give some insight into what influences our decision making process.

There's a lot to discuss here, and a lot of it needs more good discourse than it currently gets.  We can discuss big issues here.  There are cases where individual officers are lacking in tact or judgment or both.  There are a ton of departments that need better training when it comes to this stuff.  But, it's too easy and not at all fair to the dialog to paint all cops with a bad cop brush.       We're shooting from the hip here, Mac.  You've got to start somewhere.  But, we do trust our staff to make these decisions.  Even though the bench is a bit thin of late - there are really only a few active mods right now - we're depending on them to make appropriate calls, and we do discuss most moderating decisions.  Like I said earlier, we're always happy to provide reasoning for our decisions.   I guess at the end of the day, we're just trying to make this place somewhere people actually want to spend time.

This really isn't intended to apply to single threads or topics - it applies more to members who have no interest in anything but having a platform for their particular cause/obsession.  We don't boot many folks on TGO.  We don't need to.  But, to give you some insight into what I look for when trying to make these decisions, I almost always look at their last 20 posts.  If there's not a single one that's firearm related, you're probably in the wrong place.   You're right.  It's not going to be easy.  That's why we pay our staff so much and regularly enter them into popularity contests.  :)

It's not going to surprise me when Gander Mountain closes their doors in a couple of years.    They used to be such a good resource to the outdoor community.  But, the management team there seems pretty intent on making sure that customers feel as unwelcome as possible.  The last three times I've walked into the store in Turkey Creek, I've gone in with money to spend, yet left without buying a thing either because their price was so outrageously out of line with reality or there staff simply made it impossible to give them my business. 

The Ares Gear Ranger belt is, in my opinion, the best belt on the market today.  Yes it's stiff - as you want a good gun belt to be.  Yes, you're going to need to unthread the buckle from the belt to get it through a pair of 501s or any decent holster - again, this is by design.   I'm certain that if they bury me in this belt and an archeologist digs me up in 10,000 years, they'll be able to dust off this belt and put it back into service.   You're in Cleveland - anytime anyone in Nashville wants to put eyes on one, let me know and you're welcome to come by.

All,   I wanted to take a few minutes to discuss the anti-law enforcement trend I've been seeing a lot of recently in threads here on TGO.  The heart of the matter is that with almost 20,000 members we have a diverse community, and these threads are affecting the sense of community that both our staff and our core members work so hard to sustain.  As such, I'd like for people to be careful in expressing their opinions, and check their motivations when it comes to posting topics about interactions with law enforcement.    Here is a short list of guidelines that we'll be following:   If it's not happening here in Tennessee, then I'm not sure it needs to be posted here.  An open carrier getting the "harassment" they were seeking by officers out in Seattle isn't news.  On the subject of open carry getting questioned/harassed/detained by law enforcement.  I have no doubt that these people believe in what they're doing.  Ideologically, I agree with them to an extent - in that I think I should be able to carry where I want in whatever manner that I choose.  That said, discretion is a highly underrated virtue, and that's something that seems lacking in these stories.  As a general rule, these threads aren't really newsworthy.  They're sideshows with cops doing their jobs.  Do some of them stumble through it?  Yes.  Do some of them display a more aggressive attitude than necessary?  I don't know.  Maybe?  You decided express your first amendment rights through the second amendment - you're making a statement with a deadly weapon.  You should probably expect law enforcement to be on edge in 2013.  All that said, if you want a place to post open carry stories - again if it's not in Tennessee - go over to opencarry.org or any of the other places that'll give you all the response you seek. We do encourage legitimate discourse - especially when it's local.  I can't give concrete guidelines, but we'll be asking staff to use their discretion in making these judgment calls. For those members that only seem to be here to have a platform to voice their anti-government stuff, don't be surprised when we give you the opportunity to find another place to have those conversations.  This is a gun board.  While we like to talk about a lot of stuff, content needs to have at least a tangential connection to the firearms community. I understand that not every case is black and white, and that there is some room for disagreement.  This is exactly the reason we have selected the moderating staff we have.  If we shut down one of your threads, feel free to PM one of us about it.  Our moderating team is always happy to back up our reasoning, and we have reopened  threads in the past.  Give us a good reason to reopen a thread, and we will.   There are things that concern all of us.  The increasing militarization and paramilitarization of law enforcement should be concerning to everyone.  The growing surveillance state is a problem.  Bring good discourse and we can discuss big issues.   But, there are a few people on here with personal axes to grind.  I'm sorry.  This just isn't the place for that.  Are there some bad cops?  Sure.  Are there some that just come to work and dial it in?  Sure.  Are there people who do that where you work?  You bet there are.  I bet you wouldn't appreciate being lumped in with them.    There are a lot of members of law enforcement on this site.  A lot.  Stop to think about it, and you'll realize quickly that the vast majority of them are on our side of the issue.  They see good citizens able to protect themselves and their families as making their jobs as police officers a lot easier.  There really are people who want to take your guns.  Your average cop walking a beat isn't one of them.   I know that a lot of people are stressed right now.  We're 4 years nine months into an 8-year administration that really does hate us as a group.  There are a ton of new shooters out there competing for ammo right now.  Did you know that a little over one in four legally purchased firearms in America has been bought in the last five years?  Scalpers aside, there's a lot of competition for ammo out there right now.  I know people aren't shooting a lot, and that in and of itself is stressful.  This is a time where we need to pull together as a community, not fracture it.   I'm going to leave this thread open so that our community can discuss it.  I'm specifically putting it in general chat before moving it to announcements so that it can be discussed.  Subjects like this are tough, and we recognize that.  There isn't a firm rule that can be set.  Yet, we simply ask that people think about what they post, watch your tone and check your motivations for doing so.    We appreciate everyone's support in this matter.