Guns and Ammo Editor Dick Metcalf was fired by editor Jim Bequetee, who also left the magazine several months ahead of schedule, in the most public situation at the magazine since a former editor was arrested and accused of shooting his friend
Metcalf wrote in his latest “The Backstop“ column, asking: ”Do certain firearms regulations really constitute infringement?”
In the column, Metcalf wrote that regulations on firearms do not constitute infringement upon rights.
“I also received bags of mail every year [while writing a different column], much of it from readers who were upset that I advocated the passage of additional state concealed carry laws,” he wrote. “These readers typically argued (I’m paraphrasing) that ‘The Second Amendment is all the authority we need to carry anywhere we want to,’ or ‘The government doesn’t have the right to tell me whether I’m qualified to carry a gun.’
“I wondered whether those same people believed that just anybody should be able to buy a vehicle and take it out on public roadways without any kind of driver’s training, test, or license.”
In another example, Metcalf said that the law that required 16 hours of training to qualify for a gun license is not infringement in and of itself.
The column sparked tremendous backlash, as evident on responses on the magazine’s Facebook page.
“My response to the December 2013 Backpage column: cancellation of my subscription and a boycott of all Intermedia products,” wrote Trace Simek. “It takes more than one Elmer Fudd to get a pro-gun control agenda editorial in the pages of a formerly-relevant national firearms industry publication: your apology rings false, and smacks of having been cobbled together as a reaction to an unexpected deluge of negative sentiment.”
“Mandatory, govt controlled training needed to exercise a RIGHT is a blatant infringement,” wrote Tony Smith. “The argument that a person would feel ’safer‘ if gun owners were ’trained’ is the same baseless one that the anti-gunners use when they say they would feel ’safer' if no one had guns. It also presumes that gun owners are in inherently unsafe.”
Jim Bequette, editor at the magazine, wrote to readers on November 6 saying that Metcalf was fired and that while he was already planning to leave in January, he will leave immediately.
Bequette apologized for publishing the column.
“Let me be clear: Our commitment to the Second Amendment is unwavering,” he wrote. “It has been so since the beginning. Historically, our tradition in supporting the Second Amendment has been unflinching. No strings attached. It is no accident that when others in the gun culture counseled compromise in the past, hard-core thinkers such as Harlon Carter, Don Kates and Neal Knox found a place and a voice in these pages. When large firearms advocacy groups were going soft in the 1970s, they were prodded in the right direction, away from the pages of ‘Guns & Ammo.’
“In publishing Metcalf’s column, I was untrue to that tradition, and for that I apologize. His views do not represent mine — nor, most important, ‘Guns & Ammo’’s. It is very clear to me that they don’t reflect the views of our readership either.'”
At the same time, some readers believed that Metcalf should not have been fired, and appreciated the column.
“Can’t believe he got fired for brining some sanity to the conversation,” wrote Aaron Levine. “Know your audience, we are all not nutjob right wingers...Now I’m done with your magazine, you should have stood by him, you are the idiots that published it, fire yourselves.”
“Dick Metcalf said what needed to be said,” wrote Matthew Doherty. “I’ve always thought of this magazine as one that promotes responsible gun safety, and that is what Dick Metcalf was advocating. Don’t let him go because of people who think anything goes when it comes to guns.”
