Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Banished for Questioning the Gospel of Guns (consider the source)
New York Times ^ | http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/business/media/banished-for-questioning-the-gospel-of-guns.html?_r | Ravi Somaiya

Posted on 01/05/2014 6:04:38 AM PST by Olog-hai

The byline of Dick Metcalf, one of the country’s pre-eminent gun journalists, has gone missing. It has been removed from Guns & Ammo magazine, where his widely-read column once ran on the back page. He no longer stars on a popular television show about firearms. Gun companies have stopped flying him around the world and sending him the latest weapons to review.

In late October, Mr. Metcalf wrote a column that the magazine titled “Let’s Talk Limits,” which debated gun laws. “The fact is,” wrote Mr. Metcalf, who has taught history at Cornell and Yale, “all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.” The backlash was swift, and fierce. Readers threatened to cancel their subscriptions. Death threats poured in by email. His television program was pulled from the air.

Just days after the column appeared, Mr. Metcalf said, his editor called to tell him that two major gun manufacturers had said “in no uncertain terms” that they could no longer do business with InterMedia Outdoors, the company that publishes Guns & Ammo and co-produces his TV show, if he continued to work there. He was let go immediately. …

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: banglist; dickmetcalf; guncontrol; gunsandammo
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-36 next last
Only took the Slimes two months to catch up, here?
1 posted on 01/05/2014 6:04:38 AM PST by Olog-hai
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

Slow day and he had a hard time dreaming up some spin.


2 posted on 01/05/2014 6:06:05 AM PST by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mountainlion

Yeah; heaven forfend that he actually works on reporting real news.


3 posted on 01/05/2014 6:09:06 AM PST by Olog-hai
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

Doesn’t he have it backwards here? “all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.”

Isn’t the constitution to regulate government not the other way around?


4 posted on 01/05/2014 6:13:37 AM PST by captnemo1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

“all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.”

Inalienable Rights! Not Granted By Government!


5 posted on 01/05/2014 6:14:07 AM PST by Texas Fossil
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

IMHO Dick was being used by Leo Hindery, Jr. Managing Partner of InterMedia Partners (guns and ammo, shooting times etc) as a feeler to see how the shooting community would take to modifying their stance on gun control

Hindery is an Obama bundler and an anti gun POS who has caused me not to renew my subscriptions to intermedia gun mags.


6 posted on 01/05/2014 6:14:32 AM PST by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai
“We are locked in a struggle with powerful forces in this country who will do anything to destroy the Second Amendment,” said Richard Venola, a former editor of Guns & Ammo. “The time for ceding some rational points is gone.”

Richard is right --- Dick is wrong.

7 posted on 01/05/2014 6:17:08 AM PST by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> ---)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai
Since I do not subscribe to “Guns and Ammo” and stopped watching their TV show before Metcalf made his little statement on rights, I did not know he was gone. Lord knows, I could not stand that man.
But as we all know, Metcalf has the right to say whatever he wants. He just does not have the right that we have to agree with him and “Guns and Ammo” must provide him with a forum. The market decides.

Just like A&E, they could fire him or keep him, subject to the people that pay the bills opinion. The Reader and/or the Viewer.

Metcalf lost. Phil Robertson won. Both for the same reason.

8 posted on 01/05/2014 6:18:35 AM PST by Tupelo (I am feeling more like Philip Nolan every day)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Vaquero

Good to know.


9 posted on 01/05/2014 6:27:55 AM PST by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> ---)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: smokingfrog
I never cared for Metcalf anyway and preferred to watch something else when his show was aired.

I firmly believe that sponsors of programs (such as Metcalf’s WAS) do pay attention to what their customers say and do. If you hit them in the pocket book via boycotts and bad press, they will drop you like a hot potato.

10 posted on 01/05/2014 6:44:20 AM PST by DaveA37
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

From the article: “Moderate voices that might broaden the discussion from within are silenced.”

And, rightly so. To allow any encroachment on these rights is to invite the libtards to take even more, and more. That is precisely why we are in the state we are, today. Creeping socialism.
The dhimmicraps well understand ‘death by a thousand cuts’, and they are content to play that game to advance their socialist utopian goals.


11 posted on 01/05/2014 6:50:33 AM PST by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion. 01-20-2016; I pray we make it that long.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

The “shout fire” analogy doesn’t work, no one is proposing to surgically remove vocal cords.


12 posted on 01/05/2014 6:52:10 AM PST by SWAMPSNIPER (The Second Amendment, a Matter of Fact, Not a Matter of Opinion)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai
Death threats poured in by email.

Not that I don't believe the NYT (cough), but I'd like to see documentation of said death threats; followed by documentation that these threats were received from actual subscribers to G&A.

History shows that the Left tends to create "events" that support their narrative. Of course, this is due solely to the fact that we racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic, etc. conservatives don't behave in the manner in which we are characterized and the agenda must be advanced, regardless.

13 posted on 01/05/2014 6:57:59 AM PST by Arm_Bears (Refuse; Resist; Rebel; Revolt!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

A comment by Metcalf: “Compromise is a bad word these days,” he said. “People think it means giving up your principles.”

Well, if your argument starts from a firmly principled stand, then the spirit of compromise demands that you move away from that principled stand and toward the position taken by your adversary. So, to that extent, at least, compromise does entail giving up some incremental element of your principles.

In the current political environment, it will be best that true conservative, Constitutional voices remain quite firm and NOT compromise. If that results in gridlock, so be it.

This is not a time for pastels, as has been said.


14 posted on 01/05/2014 6:58:11 AM PST by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion. 01-20-2016; I pray we make it that long.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PubliusMM
"This is not a time for pastels"


15 posted on 01/05/2014 7:04:07 AM PST by Paladin2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: captnemo1
Doesn’t he have it backwards here?

Absolutely. Mainly, because there is no such thing as a Constitutional right. We have certain unalienable rights that are protected by our Constitution. It is the first line of defense against those who would try to subjugate We The People.

Even without the Constitution, we would still have them.

16 posted on 01/05/2014 7:04:39 AM PST by Bloody Sam Roberts ("Gun horror is not a productive emotion, it's learned helplessness disguised as moral superiority.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

This article is front page center, directly below a picture of a starving Afghanistan boy being held by a completely black burqua-clad cypher (a person or thing of no value or importance; nonentity).


17 posted on 01/05/2014 7:09:31 AM PST by Excellence (All your database are belong to us.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

Hey Ravi, why don’t you write a column criticizing abortion, affirmative action or fag marriage and see how fast the NY Slimes boots your dot headed ass out the door.


18 posted on 01/05/2014 7:11:41 AM PST by metalurgist ( Want your country back? It'll take guns and rope. Marxists won't give up peaceably.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

Good review of the Slimes article here:

THE TRUTH ABOUT GUNS.COM

New York Times Champions Dick Metcalf – And Reveals The Truth About Gun Reviews

By Robert Farago on January 5, 2014

The New York Times’ article Banished for Questioning the Gospel of Guns “exposes” gun journo “extremism.” It’s based on an unsurprisingly sympathetic profile of Dick Metcalf. You may remember Mr. Metcalf as the Guns & Ammo writer given the old heave-ho after writing a column suggesting that government regulation of gun rights isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Suffice it to say, Warren Zevon’s Poor Poor Pitiful Me. More specifically, this: “Mr. Metcalf said he invited a reporter to his home because he despairs that the debate over gun policy in America is so bitterly polarized and dominated by extreme voices . . .

He says he is still contemplating how a self-described “Second Amendment fundamentalist” who keeps a .38 snub-nose Smith & Wesson revolver within easy reach has been ostracized from his community. “Compromise is a bad word these days,” he said. “People think it means giving up your principles.”

Yes. Yes they do. Keeping in mind Senator Barry Goldwater’s famous quote “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” Now for the juicy bit. In its effort to diss gun journalism in general, the Old Gray Lady reveals that Guns & Ammo’s reviews are bought and paid for . . .

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/01/robert-farago/new-york-times-champions-dick-metcalf-and-reveals-the-truth-about-gun-reviews/#more-285153


19 posted on 01/05/2014 7:12:46 AM PST by KeyLargo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: captnemo1
Isn’t the constitution to regulate government not the other way around?

You are so right.

That's where the battle begins and ends.

Right now we're losing it, and badly.

20 posted on 01/05/2014 7:16:48 AM PST by Fightin Whitey
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-36 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson