Well, while it may indeed be that Arfcom had more than its share of "extremist" folks on there talking crazy shenanigans, and that's the supposed justification for taking it down ... one has to wonder where the line is drawn, and if this is a slippery slope. How long before simply discussing the use of firearms becomes "extremist" behavior. Because, y'know, not EVERYONE owns a gun, much less carries one. Why do we have and carry guns? Are we THAT paranoid? Who's out to get us? What are we afraid of? Why don't we trust that the government has our best interests in mind with everything they do? Are we plotting something? Y'know, only someone that was afraid someone was out to get them and/or they were PLANNING to do stuff would have a gun that holds so many rounds and shoots such a powerful cartridge! If we didn't intend to be waging war, why would we want or need or even talk about weapons of war? Why are we being allowed to have a forum where we can discuss this potentially dangerous stuff? And why do we have private messages? Are we HIDING something? Plotting something, perhaps?
See how the narrative can shift as needed to justify things?
Given, KTOG's policy of avoiding politics in discussions does make for a more welcoming, generally peaceful place to discuss things. But just because we don't discuss politics does not make us immune from OTHERS' politics. Because regardless of where one sits on the political fence, simply owning a firearm and enjoying it as a hobby puts a person solidly in the "THEM" category to certain people. And when those certain people decide that a site hosts something which doesn't suit their needs/wants and they figure there's enough justification and public support that they can get away with doing so, well ... one day you might try to log into KTOG and get this:
Sad thing is, there's not a whole heckuva lot we can do about it until it happens. And then when it does, there's only so much we can do about it after the fact. Escape to another server host and hope they don't refuse to host or they later shut things down for similar reasons? Get a buncha investors or whatever together to set up an independent server and hope it doesn't get hacked and shut down by denial-of-access methods or poisoning the DNS? Beyond that ... dunno. Not trying to stir the pot, just saying ... this stuff IS going on now in ways we haven't seen before, and this ride is juuuuuuust getting started, given the social climate we're in right now.
Very concerning and more than just a little bit scary to think that this could be a sign of things to come online.