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From Karl's reddit post:
AR15.com is owned by... Brownell's.
Maybe it wasn't the best idea Karl ever had to enter that forum swinging hist fists around.
I liked Karl a lot when the first InRange videos were gaining steam. The spirit of intended use, practical application and halfway 'scientific' testing of things other than 'when does it blow up' was something that seemed missing in a lot of channels. And thinking back, it definitely had a sort of 'blue' approach to guns as opposed to 'red'. For better or worse, at least it was different. Karl was also kind of a 'sperg'. But it seemed appropriate for the subject matter and company.
Fast forward through satanism, open findom relationships, antifa friends, trans rights and racist jokes, if you care about 'ethical consumerism' like is clearly done by Karl and friends, why should any right of center person support or tolerate someone like Karl?
Hopefully Ian will be doing a video on 'his own' rifle, recounting how he and his partner, after a lot of time, effort and research, advertised a product they weren't selling, before realizing there was money to be made by selling it. Hastily trying to figure out how to procure the parts they had already told everyone about, that had become very scarce as a result, so they could sell them themselves. Going through a lot of work and hassle trying to get the ball rolling before helplessly watching the project crash and burn since his partner was too autistic to handle social media and keep his extreme politics in his pocket.
A humbling moment of becoming a part of history, if nothing else.
Do you ever get upset when progressives refuse to tolerate somebody because they expressed right-of-center views that aren't central to what that person is primarily known for? Do you ever feel like, you know, it's kind of unfair for somebody who's really good at something like acting or writing or programming or making cool YouTube videos to suddenly have no platform to do those things because they said something completely unrelated to any of those things that progressives happened to disagree with? If so, then why would you think it's okay to do that when the shoe is on the other foot?
FWIW, I have enjoyed owning, shooting and maintaining guns for years, but I find it increasingly hard to enjoy the hobby as somebody who's culturally blue tribe because of exactly the attitude you just expressed, and the fear that in order to be a "gun guy" you also have to hate non-whites and LGBTQ people or you won't fit in.
Not anymore, no. When I actually believed in the concepts that have now been expressly refuted by lib/left/progressives I assumed that there was a broad recognition and understanding of the value of free speech and all the rest. I, through experience with exactly the kind of people Karl enables, learned that I was wrong.
Not anymore, no. Everyone is already playing by the rules of the lib/left/progressives. You can't say X on 99% of platforms. Most of the internet I liked, the youtube channels, twitter accounts, podcasts, subreddits like this used to be and everything else, has been relegated to obscurity or simply scrubbed from existence. Users lost, essays, exchanges, information and friends, all gone. All of this happened years ago and continues to happen. Because of the kind of people Karl is rubbing shoulders with.
Because controlling 99% of the internet vs. controlling 1% isn't comparable. Regardless of everything else, no one lives by the libertarian ruleset Karl pretends to support. Everyone has to, in 99% of cases, contort themselves to the ruleset of lib/left/progressivism. In 1% of cases some people, who are not on board with the lib/left/progressive ruleset, can tell the 99% to fuck off and act and speak more freely. That's where Karl comes in and decides to take a principled stand on free speech and call everyone out for their hypocrisy? Give me a break. How about he make that stand anywhere else and see how long he is tolerated. Maybe he'd recognize just how good he has had it with the people he so indignantly accuses of hate.
And just what kind of attitude is that? The kind that every single blue triber mandates for everyone else, everywhere else? Take a good hard look at yourself and read what you are saying. Imagine how it feels like for someone red to have to live with what you are pretending is pushing you away from guns, but in night every aspect of their lives. They can't use the internet without blue signaling people prodding their fingers around, looking for an excuse to take everything they can away from them. They can't turn on the TV without being bombarded with blue propaganda.
And when they manage, by chance and luck, to carve out a space where they can exist, a wolf in sheep's clothing starts knocking on their door. Asking to be let in. After they let it in the wolf demands that the space conform to the practices of the 99%. And when they tell it 'no', the wool comes off and it goes for the jugular: 'Why do you HATE me so? The minorities, the gays, the oppressed? Why are you so evil? Why do you HATE?'.
The only thing you need to be a gun guy is a gun and an interest. You are not just a gun guy, you are intolerant. The existence of people who you perceive to be not like you is so insufferable that you are willing to drop your own interest for the sake of it. Contrast that with anyone not drinking the lib/left/progressive koolaid and how they have to contort and stifle themselves just to be allowed to have a job, and maybe have some empathy before baring your fangs.
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It would be perfect for his "gun manufacturing is harder than you think" series, wouldn't it?
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