Advisory: Rogue Commenters Registry

I believe pro-RKBA sites may have a problem. Let’s start with this story from April 6, 2019:

Texas House Speaker declares ‘constitutional carry’ gun bill dead after gun-rights activist shows up at his home
Chris McNutt, executive director of Texas Gun Rights and a supporter of the legislation that would allow Texans to carry firearms without a license, showed up to Bonnen’s home in Lake Jackson on Wednesday to question why the bill had stalled, according to the Dallas Morning News.Bonnen, a Republican, was in the state capital of Austin but his wife teenage sons were inside the home. He said McNutt’s actions were a demonstration of “insanity” and called him an “overzealous advocate for criminals to get a gun.”

Before you jump to conclusions:

“Everyone slammed Chris McNutt of Texas Gun Rights for the fake story of the crazy gun advocate who went to the Texas Speaker’s house. What the news didn’t say was that Chris was posting flyers on the front doors of every house in the neighborhood, and he never stepped foot on Bonnen’s property.” (source)

A Speaker opposed to pro-rights legislation tells a tale of something that never quite happened: an attempted “intimidation,” by omitting key facts and warping the rest. And uses that to rationalize killing the legislation.

That’s from days ago, old news by “Internet time,” so you may be wondering why I bring it up now.

That’s once (that I’m aware of).

That’s bad enough, but 3 days later…

How the ‘open carry’ gun-rights effort in South Carolina shot itself in the foot
The push for open carry gun laws in South Carolina has backfired after one of the bill’s supporters threatened a top state lawmaker.

In response, a state Senate subcommittee chairman postponed Tuesday’s hearing on the bill, effectively killing it for the year by ensuring it misses a Wednesday deadline to pass either the House or the Senate.

Darn those hot-headed Freedom Action Network of South Carolina (warning: Facebook) nutsos; loose cannons. Right?

Not quite.

“This comment was on a Facebook advertisement from an individual who is not associated with our organization. And in fact, nobody here knows who he is. The comments were brought to our attention and we removed them.”

Legislators stalling bill. Mysterious threat from out of nowhere. Polticians and media claim it’s from “one of the bill’s supporters”, but none of the real supporters know who it is, and deleted the “threat.” “Threat” used as an excuse to kill bill.

Twice.

I fully expect to see “enemy action” soon.

It hasn’t happened often, but when The Zelman Partisans see a comment like that, I do delete it. But… I make a permanent record of the comment to include content, username, email address, any link, and originating IP address. Depending on the severity of the offense, I either blacklist the IP immediately or give the person a second chance before banning (the latter in the case of someone who has been a decent participant in the past and may just be having one bad day).

I highly recommend that all pro-freedom site administrators and moderators follow my example.

If anti-rights types are going to make this a standard tactic, it would be helpful to have a list of offenders, where we can share data, and recognize repeat “false flag” operators. Unless/until someone comes up with something better, I offer this page for the purpose. Post a comment with the suspected operator’s info.

Do not doxx.

Keep your own full record, but only post username, originating IP address, site where the comment was posted, and type.

Example:
Username: Red Flagler
IP: 123.456.789.10
Site where posted: www.rights.xx
Type: Death threat to cops
Repeater: Yes. (x times)

I’ll go through comments periodically, and update the main list, wit special attention to repeat IPs. It would help if you’d try to match your offender’s IP to one already listed (control-F search). That’s what “repeater” in the example refers to.


Potential False Flags
Threats, whether vague or specific. Do not include non-threatening racist, antisemitic, or other insults.


Username: Bill Raven
IP: 69.76.5.95
Site where posted: zelmanpartisans.com
Type: Advocated killing judges and DAs
Repeater:

Username: anonymous
IP: 68.135.137.122
Site where posted: zelmanpartisans.com
Type: Threat to kill Jews
Repeater: Yes. (2)

Username: jim
IP: 68.62.176.179, 73.108.192.241
Site where posted: zelmanpartisans.com
Type: Death threats to media & political figures, and other individuals
Repeater: Yes. (6)

Username: Allan (allan112358@protonmail.com)
IP: 138.199.52.197, 138.199.52.197
Site where posted: zelmanpartisans.com
Type: Advocated overthrowing US government and destruction of America
Repeater: Yes. (2 times)


[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]

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2 thoughts on “Advisory: Rogue Commenters Registry”

  1. It is a sad day that you are now forced to keep a list like this, but the truth is, that the way this world is now, you really must do this to protect not only the movement but your own back side. They say that you are known by the company you keep. Well, it is a known tactic for some people to insert bad apples into movements, and try to get them to commit criminal acts, just so that they can break the group up, through criminal prosecution.
    The anti gun movement will stop at absolutely nothing, including criminal acts, even assault, and murder, to ultimately achieve their goal. And they will never stop, period.
    It would be great if we could say that we will win, because we have right on our side, or we have patriots on our side, or we are better organized, or any other form of hope. But the truth is, there is no assurance of our winning. The only possible way that we can guarantee that we will win is the way that I guaranteed that I would always win in any athletic competition in high school. I would never quit. You want to race me? No problem, but it must be a race until one of us quits, not a specific length. I would run until the other guy stopped, or I was dead, before I would quit and lose.
    I played varsity baseball four years. I sat the bench for 3 years, before I played my senior year. I never quit, and was the 6th best hitter in 3 counties here in Michigan, with an average of almost .400.
    It is the same with our fight to keep our gun rights. We might lose some of the battles. We cannot quit, we can’t stop writing to our congress idiots. We can’t stop donating money to any cause we support, or even going to a protest or two, if we are able. I even have written to the head of some of the gun and gun supply companies and encouraged them, and thanked them, for their staunch support of our 2nd amendment rights.
    The time to fight the hardest is the time when it looks the darkest.

  2. When I first heard about this, it reminded me of something from a way back. It’s not a new tactic, but a revived one. This is from a column called The Missouri Miracle, a synopsis of Missouri’s battle to pass concealed carry. I’ll link the whole column at the end.

    It got worse. One year we finally had the votes to pass the senate; the vote was scheduled for a vote at the very end of the session. On the big day, extra security was noted. The word was that a Senator’s life had been threatened if he did not vote for our bill. The Senate quickly closed ranks and refused to take up the bill. Days later, when the session was over, Banks blandly told a newspaper that our chairman, Steve Coleman, had told him that if he did not vote our way, he could not support Banks in future elections. “Since there was no alternative to me”, Banks claimed, “That meant he was going to kill me.” That this absurd excuse for lying to his fellow senators was not taken as an affront by his fellow senators was an important lesson to us.

    https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/inspirational-mo-concealed-carry-story.41952/

    When I heard about the first one, I thought well, if it really was a 2a activist, that won’t happen again. If it happens again, we’ll know the anti-freedom crowd have revived an old trick.

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