To the editorial staff of the Rolling Stone:
As a young child growing up in Rolla, Missouri, life was relaxed and everything you would expect out of a “Leave it to Beaver” type town….that is until my dad had to lay-off a problem employee at his major logistics company. The employee had a history of violence and was a convicted felon. Once laid-off, the employee started making death threats towards our family. The situation was serious enough that I had to be escorted to and from school by two SWAT team members, every day, for an entire year . . .
Even with armed guards, we were not allowed to live our lives as normal people. The threat of being stabbed to death by a crazed-man was always in the back of our minds. We weren’t living, we were just surviving and we felt like cattle, ready and waiting for slaughter.
All of this changed when an uncle, who was a veteran law enforcement officer, loaned my father a Glock 21 and a Walther PPK. My father took our family to the range and even though I was young, I was forced to shoot. Along with my family members, I emptied magazine after magazine.
With each bullet that left the end of the barrel and struck its intended target, we were freed. More and more with every loud bang! We were no longer slaves to the ill will of a convicted felon. We still had to check over our shoulders periodically, but we did it knowing that we could handle whatever we saw.
The Rolling Stone’s assault on the firearms rights of U.S. citizens is irresponsible and will allow criminals to act as tyrants to lives and minds of law-abiding citizens. If your publication was successful in its campaign against the U.S. Constitution, then you would most likely be killing ten times the amount of people than you could have ever expected to save.
I realize that everyone makes mistakes and it is how we recover from those mistakes that shows who we really are. You can still fix your misguided step into world of anti-gun literature, but you will need to start publishing the other side of the story. You will be overwhelmed by the mass quantity of good people’s lives that are saved by firearms every year and it will most likely help to boost your number of subscribers.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
At the risk of stating the obvious, that wasn’t the Michael Moore I was expecting.
Also, are there any plans to ever allow mobile replies to comments again? Just curious.
+1
Doing it now. Scroll to the very bottom and change to ” desktop “.
From my iphone
Thanks Tom. But I’m a millennial. I want things to work perfectly without any effort on my part. If that expectation isn’t met I will immediately complain about it on the Internet.
But seriously, this is the most read gun blog on earth. The mobile site should just work.
Sent from my phablet.
I agree – your site but IMO – Switching to desktop version should be a temporary fix – not a final solution.
Interesting that you should use that phrase in light of the illustration above. Just sayin’…
The mobile template sucks anyways because opening a link in a tab also clicks that link, at least in Chrome and Firefox on Android.
As for the mobile site comments, yes. It’s being programmed as I type. In fact we’ll have a much nicer, more eyeball friendly mobile version soon that will restore full comment functionality and allow us to dump the POS WordPress plug-in we’ve been using until now. Hope to have it in place by the end of the month.
Thanks for your patience.
One of the reasons I latched onto this site in the first place is that it passed the mobile test (in my book) that a lot of sites do not.
The worst thing a site can do is load the page and then when you start to navigate you realize the page just shifted and behold, you actually just clicked on an ad or whatever.
At the risk of being flamed… Michael Moore isn’t necessarily against guns, he’s against people shooting them at each other so much.
More of a Patrick F. McManus attitude toward guns. Fore FUDD than self defense.
I’m not saying I like the guy, but I could picture him poking Rolling Stone on the shoulder and saying: “Hey, guys, your Issue is stupid. Crack a dictionary or something.”
Michael Moore lionized the columbine killers. There is a reason why almost all the other school killers were obsessed with Moore’s “bowling.”
Of course Rolling stone Magazine choose to do a flattering portrayal of the Boston Bomber
You needs to gitcherself a real computer, of a caliber starting in four.
/sarc
“Why should I have to change MY name? HE’S the one who sucks!”
The irony of the author’s name is beyond words.
Oh, ok, not *that* Michael Moore.
Yeah, I’m not going to lie, I almost shit my pants reading that thinking “NO WAY”… then saw that it was not the Liberal Lardo…
“Michael Moore FFL”
lol when they get to that part they’re going to knock their bong over.
This isn’t the Michael Moore you are looking for.
Don’t move along, though, ’cause you’re in for a treat!
+1
“The situation was serious enough that I had to be escorted to and from school by two SWAT team members, every day, for an entire year . . .”
Not 1, but two SWAT team members huh? Every day for a year? Sure it wasn’t a Navy Seal, I’ve heard they can appear to look like two SWAT team members.
It’s not a “Leave it to Beaver” type town if it has a SWAT team, jus’ sayin’…
To be fair, SWAT guys may have more down time than beat cops to be playing babysitter instead of endlessly training. Probably makes their escorts feel better, too. And as far as “leave it to beaver towns” not having SWAT teams; no, such towns don’t really exist, and yes, friendly and prosperous towns like the beavers’ pretty much all have developed SWAT units at this point. Those upper-middle-class tax dollars can pay for them, and eagerly vote for them in bond initiatives (for the children, you see)
Nice, well said. I thought it would be about the gun grabber Michael Moore, and I feel sorry for this guy that he has to share a name with him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADgS_vMGgzY#t=37s
Beat me too it!
I thought I was having a stroke
What a psychout. Are you aware the other Moore stated he is a life member of the NRA? That was the claim from Bowling for Columbine. That would make him(?) the worst kind of hypocrite and apostate…but we knew that.
His plan was to get other people to join and vote him president. But I guess no one felt strongly enough to actually purchase lifetime memberships.
Would suck to have a “famous” name especially a tool like El Blimpo.
I’d start going by my middle name or at least Mike.
The real response to the RS jihad is derision and condescension. They are kids who know exactly nothing about life or guns, and yet feel empowered to rant all they want on both issues. It would be like if the NRA started commenting on recreational drug use and popular cult ohhhh….
Sort of an interesting cartoon cover of the type of tyranny Rolling Stoned unwittingly promotes. It is sort of interesting watching the left promote freedom of the press, freedom of music, freedom of love, freedom of lifestyles, and freedom of choice in using condoms,, alcohol tobacco, but forgetting an essential safe guard of the guarantees of those said freedoms.
“A rolling stone gathers no moss.”
Seems to gather sh1t quite well though.
Just sayin’………….
This story is compelling, but there is one other thing to mention. Not everyone can get swat team escorts, especially the poor in large cities. Those less fortunate have no choice. They can live in danger or protect themselves.
Nice twist. Well played!
Life is good until it’s @$%! and can’t be bothered to let you know ahead of time when that switch is about to (has already) happened. That’s why grownups prepare for the ^@#& while life is still good.
“Home sweet Rolla! Life was good, then some crazy guy took an interest in my family”
Replace that with “then my house burned down”, “then my mom got cancer”, “then my dad ran off with his assistant”, etc.
+ 1,000,000
Pissing into a strong wind.
Mike wasted his time.
John
Rolling stone personnel are going to read this article and think… Wait? This isn’t the famous Michael Moore? Ok nevermind – article doesn’t matter.
This just in: TTAG isn’t above clickbait.
Let’s see YOUR gun blog that need advertising but does not need clicks. No? Then shut up.
Do you read these articles for free? Yes? Then shut up.
I imagine that, without exception, every single person who clicked on the story expected to see THE Michael Moore writing to Rolling Stone, just as they’d expect President Obama if there had been a story titled ‘Obama tells Rolling Stone…’ instead of some random guy named Steve Obama. This site does just fine pulling in viewers without resorting to cheap bait-and-switch tactics; as they’ve said before, they’re the most popular firearms blog on the internet… so they shouldn’t be resorting to tricks best reserved for bound-to-fail startups who haven’t yet earned the respect of their readers.
As for using clickbait to get more advertising revenue… it’s a horrible plan. Why? Because the moment readers see through the sham, we stop clicking. I’m a regular reader of TTAG, but you can bet that the next time I see a post which sounds intriguing, I’m going to think twice before spending a few minutes of my time reading through it; I’ll have learned my lesson about The Blog Who Cried Wolf. Or Moore, in this case. Read through the comments (if you can muster up the dignity to refrain from telling everyone who disagrees you to shut up) and you’ll see just what I mean.
Although I love the message this guy is going for, I have to believe this falls under 99% of “this thing happened to me once so I’m going to send it to people on the internet” type stories – aka, it never happened. Two SWAT team members for a year? Personal escort to and from school? No real descripion of anything so you could identify anything in particular about the town, company, crazy guy? etc.
Morale of the story is great one, DON’T BE A VICTIM! Learn to defend yourself insteadof relying on others (even personal SWAT team escorts…) but this is probably closerto a parable than a real life story
A friend of mine fired a shot at his mothers boyfriend, to stop him from choking her to death. He spent about a week in jail (he was 18,) which was just enough time for him to be assaulted and have some teeth knocked out (“stabbed in the mouth with a fork.”) Was exonerated, and to this day makes it out to the range with me from time to time. I’ve tried to get him to share his story in a political way but he would rather just be left alone. Too bad; I happen to now live in the apartment where the incident actually occurred, and the first time he was over he pointed out the drywall patch where the round struck. There are thousands of other kids who used guns to save their mothers from abusive lovers (the war FOR women), all over the country, who had to deal with the legal system and as a result just want to be left alone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADgS_vMGgzY
Let’s see YOUR gun blog that need advertising but does not need clicks. No? Then shut up.
“My father took our family to the range and even though I was young, I was forced to shoot.”
What was wrong with this kid that he had to be forced to shoot a gun? When I was a young’un, I and every other boy I knew would have jumped at the chance to shoot a couple of handguns.
– With regards to the last posted comment. I loved to shoot my .22 marlin, but at 8 years old a Gen 1 Glock 21 was not exactly my cup of tea.
– As far as my name is concerned, it makes for a good conversation piece when people see my name tag walking around at Shot Show.
No such thing as a Gen 1 Glock 21.
Sorry, the first generation that they made glock 21’s.
This Michael Moore is probably 10,000 Happy Meals short of that Michael Moore.
I feel like I just got Rick Rolled.
http://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
Not that Michael Moore? Good to know that pigs still don’t fly, but it’s too bad they don’t shift their position on gun rights, either.
That said, bully for this Michael Moore, at least. I hope many others like him continue to flood Rolling Stone’s inbox.
Geez. I realize it may be hard to manufacture content for this site on a consistent basis, but this is pretty lame.
Aren’t there some writing quality standards for contributors? The bar seems lower now.
I’m sure they would lower the bar even more to accommodate you, but that would probably involve putting the bar on the floor.
Judging by your “movie review”, the bar has been discarded. Disbarred. You know, like you.
Since when dose a simple testimonial need to be written to some expert standard? We are fighting for the rights of every individual and in turn taking the aid of any individual whatever their background or talents. To reject a true and relevant story because it lacks polish or some bare minimum of nine dollar words would be foolish disingenuous and a betrayal of the cause.
This is not the “Moore” that you are looking for. On your way.
Once Rolling Stones was edgy, ground breaking, interesting. Now it’s boring, predictable pc-speak. READERS DIGEST FOR PROGTARDS….
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