Invitation to my Readers

With the latest Instalanch from the "Elect the Great in 2008" hoopla, I've gotten about 1500 hits over the last two or three days, many of which are people who have not read my blog before. From perusing Sitemeter from time to time, I see that many of you are spending some time reading more than one page of this site.

While I do this largely for my own entertainment, I wouldn't do it if I didn't have readers, and I'm not doing it exclusively for my entertainment.

I'm an advocate. This is my soapbox. It is my goal to make the undecideds, the people who don't think much about their individual rights - particularly their right to keep and bear arms, think about them.

But it's a one-sided exchange for the most part.

I became an activist about 1994. I got on the internet in 1995. I discovered that I liked to write, and that I'm pretty fair at it. (I'm no Steven Den Beste, but hey, who is?) I wrote for the late, lamented Themestream.com for several months, and had some excellent exchanges with people who agreed and, more importantly, disagreed with me. Then it folded, and I stopped writing for a while. Then I found AR15.com, but that's not preaching to the choir, that's me standing in the audience while the Mormon Tabernacle is at full pitch. Some of those guys make me look like Diane Feinstein.

Via AR15.com I was introduced to the Democratic Underground (no link - on purpose), and I went there, read for a while, picked my jaw up off the floor and started posting. It was, as they say, a target-rich environment. I lasted several months and just over 1800 posts. Just before I was booted (by the SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR) one of the lower-level administrators said to me: "Dear PITA:" (Pain In The Ass) "Don't shut up. I wildly disagree with most of your positions on this subject, but you are a damn fine advocate. And you make me think. And that is important." I like to think so.

I could have cobbled up another e-mail address and returned, but as Robert Heinlein said of visiting Russia: "Once is educational, twice is masochism." Going back under a pseudonym would have gone against what I believed. I stand here, as I did there, using my own name.

Again, I stopped writing. Then I found the Blogosphere, and I was tempted. I was finally enticed to start this blog by agreeing to discuss gun control with Jack of The Road Not Taken at his alternate site The Commentary. So here I am, spending far more time than I should.

So, an invitation: if you've read something here you disagree with, send me an e-mail. I'd be happy to discuss it with you either on this forum or privately. Do try to be civil, though. This topic (like abortion) tends to raise blood pressures, tempers, and voices. But it CAN be discussed in normal tones, and it should be. Emotion got us where we are today. Only logic will suffice to correct that.

If you agree with me, then point your anti-gun and undecided friends and relatives to this site. (I know you've got 'em.) The more the merrier.

People are afraid of what they don't understand. Education is the key.

Thank you for your attention. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

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UPDATE:  As of August 6, 2013, due to the herculean efforts of reader John Hardin, the original JS-Kit/Echo comment thread for this post (read-only) is available here.