[il-talk] Guns and Ammo

[Don Gillmore]

I believe in my right to own and possess a gun , but I hope this was written jest.
Don Gillmore

TRIBUNE VOICES. Guns & Ammo readers recoil from writer's folly Regulation suggestion results in 2 dismissals at storied publication. Rex W. Huppke. I have always admired Guns & Ammo magazine for its reverence toward guns, ammunition and ampersands. . But as I sat back in my zebra-skin recliner to read the December issue, I was horrified to find a column with the headline: "Let's talk limits. Do certain firearms regulations really constitute infringement? Rather than read the column, I shot the magazine to bits. Then, for good measure, I took the gun I used to shoot the magazine and shot it with a different gun, just to fully dispose of any liberal anti-gun contamination. I went online, bought a few extra guns and then went to the Guns & Ammo website to actually read what I had pre-decided was an unbelievably offensive column. Boy, was I correct in advance. Dick Metcalf, a contributing editor for the magazine, wrote that "(W)ay too many gun owners still seem to believe that any regulation of the right to keep and bear arms is an infringement. He sneakily quoted the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, noting that it describes a "well regulated Militia," not an unregulated militia. "But many argue that any regulation at all is, by definition, an infringement," Metcalf wrote. "If that were true, then the authors of the Second Amendment themselves should not have specified 'well regulated.' " How dare he question the infallibility of our Founding Fathers, who clearly envisioned a day when Americans could easily use the Internet to buy high-capacity magazines for semi-automatic rifles capable of downing an entire herd of buffalo. As a final insult, Metcalf lifted a bit of "logic" and "reason" from his left-wing tool kit, writing: "I firmly believe that all U.S. citizens have a right to keep and bear arms, but I do not believe that they have a right to use them irresponsibly. Listen, Metcalf. If I want to pierce my ears (which I would NEVER do because I'm not a liberal hippie freak) and wear loaded .22-caliber handguns as earrings, I have a right to do it because I'm an American and God told the Founding Fathers I can do whatever I want with guns. So how dare you suggest that any gun regulations -- like Illinois' new concealed carry law, which requires 16 long hours of training to obtain a license -- are acceptable. The reaction to Metcalf's column from loyal Guns & Ammo subscribers was overwhelmingly negative, so the magazine's editor did what any reasonable editor should do when a columnist writes something readers disagree with: He fired the columnist. And then the editor, Jim Bequette, also fired himself for having the gall to print something so disgustingly fact-based. In an apology to readers, Bequette wrote: "I understand what our valued readers want. I understand what you believe in when it comes to gun rights, and I believe the same thing. I made a mistake by publishing the column. You sure did. And while I'm understandably upset about this whole thing, I do have a bit of compassion for Metcalf and Bequette. You see, I went through something very similar back when I was a young columnist for Rigid Ideologue Weekly. In a piece about welfare reform, rather than stating that the government should "absolutely stop giving handouts to ne'er-do-wells," I wrote that the government should "perhaps stop giving handouts to ne'er-do-wells. That mealy mouthed wording veered so sharply from the magazine's mission that I was fired, along with my editor, a copy editor and everyone who sat within a one-desk radius of me. The magazine published an apology that read: "Mr. Huppke's failure to assert an absolutist opinion that precisely mirrors the opinion shared by all of our readers was unacceptable. We at Rigid Ideologue Weekly understand that our valued customers are paying to have their existing opinions strongly reinforced in print without generating any cumbersome thinking or reconsideration. We won't let this happen again. I learned from that experience. I had 1 inch of my right leg removed so that when I stand my body can never lean to the left. I wired my computer keyboard so it delivers a high-voltage shock if I ever type the word "compromise. (Ouch.) And I swore I would never again be lured in by the possibility that a middle ground exists. I'm sure Metcalf will have a similar moment of clarity. But just in case, I'm going to go shoot his column a few more times.