Mistress Tam asked an interesting question:
How many of those people do you think read either gun blogs or anti-gun blogs?
She was referring to a previous post where I mentioned that what we do is not trying to convince the True Believer in Anti Gun causes but the ones that might have not so defined feelings one way or the other or have not made a decision yet.
Let me start with my particular case: Yes, but I am not fooling myself about the cause or the numbers. I imagine that somebody interested in knowing about Gun Free Zones may Google the term and my blog comes up first most of the time. So by way of search logarithm, they may end up landing here. Does it make a difference? I would like to think so, but that is just a wish.
Gun Blogs are encyclopedias of Gun Stuff. The political ones serve the purpose of concentrating info about Gun Rights, what has happened before, what is going on and where we might be going. We are also repeater stations where the author may share something he saw somewhere and thinks his readers may find interesting or useful. Also the author may get his knowledge corrected (Lord knows it happens enough in this URL) from things he gets wrong.
And at best, we occupy shelf space. The more of us are out there, the more results mentioning our side of things appear in the webs and the less space the opposition has. If anything is a direct metric showing which side has the grassroots and who is the one manufacturing outrage. In a world where little by little people are gathering their information not from the Boob Tube or the Local Bird Cage Liner but their favorite electronic device, to have an awesome presence is important.
My post Moms Demand Action: Shannon Watts, The Plastic Gardener, has been accessed over 16,500 times and I have seen it copied and passed about in may forums and even almighty Reddit. Was it used last week in Indiana where Shannon Watts got her lying butt spanked by a legislator? I don’t know but I will let my ego run with it ’cause the poor fella needs petting once in a while.
And that is all we can aspire to: that what we do gets used for good and hope, maybe, for some linky-love.
And that the Koch Brothers finally get around to fulfill the anti-gun conspiracy and put us in their payrolls. I can use some extra cash.
I read one gun hater blog, that’s enough. I don’t comment because of that whole “reasoned discourse”thing. I’ve never censored a comment on y own blog. I believe that the opposition should be heard. Even if they are a bunch of liberal idiot pisswits.
You know, by cross-posting links to certain articles on Facebook, I have had more than one “middle fo the roader” to re-examine their initial beliefs. Because, while they may not generally read gun blogs on their own, they DO tend to read stuff I post, because they think I post funny and/or thought-provoking things.
So the message gets out there, because while you (and Tam, etc.) are not _yet_ in their monkeysphere, _I_ am.