The latest brouhaha in the gun blogger world is over a website called “Smoke and Thunder”. No, I’m not going to bother linking to it.

But I will link to some useful stories about it. Here’s Unc’s first post, Unc’s follow up, which links to Linoge’s write up, and Miguel’s too which is frankly the best if you read through all the comments.

I have no idea if they used my identity. I don’t run in the “top gun-blogger personalities” circle so probably not (tho I am protective of my “hsoi” trademark). But the whole concept of this is just bothersome.

First, they don’t understand “fair use”. I’ve found that when someone tosses around “fair use”, especially as something to hide behind, that’s demonstration they don’t understand the concept.

But let’s set aside the legal questions. Let’s just look at what they’re doing.

They’re being dicks.

Look at the postings on their own site. Look at the comments they left on Miguel’s site. Their attitude is that if you don’t like what we’re doing, then YOU are the asshole for not allowing them to piggy-back off what you’ve built (e.g. the name, likeness, and thus reputation of folks like Oleg Volk, Tam, Breda, Unc, Caleb Giddings, and so on). Their handling, their “public relations” skills really leave something to be desired.

So you have to wonder… are they just assholes? are they just stupid? Or is there something uglier going on? Who knows.

And really… who cares.

We’re feeding the troll by caring. All this bad press, it’s still press. They’re happy to get it.

So no, I don’t and won’t have any affiliation with them. The only group I tend to be prejudiced against are assholes, and I have better things to do with my life and time. Hopefully this will be the first and the last I have to say on the subject.