The editor of Guns & Ammo made a horrible terrible epic mistake. He overestimated his readers. To their faces. Worse, he overestimated his advertisers.

The December issue of Guns & Ammo, “The World’s Most Widely Read Firearms Magazine,” ran a column by Dick Metcalf, called “Let’s Talk Limits.”

In the column, Metcalf said crazy things.

He must have said crazy things, because the reaction got him FIRED, caused the editor to LEAVE HIS JOB early, and caused reader FURY. But it’s hard for an outsider to pinpoint the crazy.

Metcalf said, “I firmly believe that all U.S. citizens have a right to keep and bear arms, but I do not believe that they have a right to use them irresponsibly.”

He said other rights are regulated – why not this one? He didn’t think it was unconstitutional to enact “regulatory laws requiring them [gun-owners] to undergo adequate training and preparation for the responsibility of bearing arms.”

He said, “I don’t think that requiring 16 hours of training to qualify for a concealed carry license is infringement in and of itself.” He added, “But that’s just me.”

I’m not seeing the “anti-gun diatribe” or “pro-gun control polemic” that Robert Farago, publisher of The Truth About Guns saw. He said people like Metcalf are “enemies of The People of the Gun.” (The People of the Gun? There’s my crazy!) He says “anyone who supports a gun magazine that prints this kind of anti-gun agitprop is supporting the diminution and destruction of our gun rights. Or is that just me?” (Ooh, see what he did there?)

According to Metcalf, when the furious reaction began, he was asked to write a “clarification and elaboration” for the Guns & Ammo website. Before it went up, InterMedia Outdoors Network, which owns 14 hunting/fishing/shooting magazines besides Guns & Ammo, TV shows, a radio show, and the Sportsman Channel network, heard from two gun industry manufacturers.

They did not say they loved the column. They did not say it was a breath of fresh outdoorsy air. No, they said they would not be advertising with InterMedia unless there was a… personnel change.

Forget clarifying and elaborating, it’s FIRING TIME. Metcalf won’t be writing for InterMedia entities any more. Editor Jim Bequette, who approved Metcalf’s column, stepped down. And Guns & Ammo published a long humble self-criticism by Bequette.

I’ll skim Bequette’s apology.

As editor… I owe each and every reader a personal apology.

No excuses, no backtracking….

…Historically, our tradition in supporting the Second Amendment has been unflinching….

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.

Dick Metcalf has had a long and distinguished career as a gunwriter, but his association with “Guns & Ammo” has officially ended.

I once again offer my personal apology. I understand what our valued readers want. I understand what you believe in when it comes to gun rights, and I believe the same thing.

I made a mistake by publishing the column. I thought it would generate a healthy exchange of ideas on gun rights. I miscalculated, pure and simple. I was wrong, and I ask your forgiveness.

Plans were already in place for a new editor to take the reins of “Guns & Ammo” on January 1. However, these recent events have convinced me that I should advance that schedule immediately….

“Guns & Ammo” will never fail to vigorously lead the struggle for our Second Amendment rights, and with vigorous young editorial leadership…, it will be done even better in the future.

Respectfully,

Jim Bequette

Oh, for crying out loud.

He certainly takes responsibility. It would be a good apology except it’s too much. As previously argued in SorryWatch, it can be as bad to overstate your offense in an apology as to understate it. If I start telling you about a concert, and you remind me I already told you about the concert, it might be appropriate for me to say, “Sorry, I forgot I already told you.” Not, “God, I’m so sorry, I ruined your day! What’s wrong with me? I WRECK EVERYTHING I TOUCH!”

Bequette is in I WRECK EVERYTHING territory.

What is he apologizing for? For misjudging readers. As in, ‘I thought you could handle this, I was wrong, I’m sorry.’

Sorry for what? ‘Sorry I exposed you to an uncongenial line of thought’?

Maybe it’s partly a dog-whistle apology to advertisers – ‘I apologize for disturbing the readership. Never again! InterMedia threw me under the bus, plus I’m falling on my sword, see?’

Bequette is also an editorial director at InterMedia and I see no mention of his stepping down from that job. Maybe that’s why it seems like an apology from terror.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe if I were someone who lies awake worrying about the Gun Grabbers, the apology wouldn’t seem like too much. Maybe he really had to grovel. It’s true many readers were upset. Many had asked that Metcalf be fired. Others spoke heatedly of boycotting Guns & Ammo advertisers. Could be they thought he WRECKED EVERYTHING.

Although some did accept his apology. One person commented:

Hes owning up to his mistake and corrected it by eliminating a person whos views were unhealthy to the fight for our rights. His intent was to start a discussion. He didnt want or intend for it to be taken as “Their opinion on gun rights”

A lot more people gave that comment a thumbs-up than a thumbs-down. Ad Age says that discussion on G & A‘s Facebook page “turned from a one-sided pile-on to a more wide-ranging argument about gun regulation and the role of a magazine covering the industry.”

I don’t know if that’ll be much comfort to Metcalf.

The strange thing is that most gun owners – even most NRA members – do support regulations on gun use. (They’re not nuts.) But NRA leadership doesn’t. (They’re… um… ) The extreme views of the People of the Gun have captured the pulpit. Aided, in this case, by the ad budgets of gun manufacturers.