Ok so here's my thoughts guys.... as I'm sure you've all seen Facebook has launched a campaign against gun owners in recent weeks. whilst at first i assumed this was going to be aimed more at the states where people could bypass security checks etc it would appear Facebook have taken it upon themselves to start deleting anything that seems even remotely shooting orientated, which quite frankly is out of line. Yet again we find legal gun owners being persecuted for no good reason!
Its a well known fact that shooting has a certain stigma, you know the one i mean - that all gun owners are ticking time bombs waiting to shoot up a school near you or go out and carry out acts of terror... because we all know criminals and terrorists only use legally held guns don't we! but that's a different rant all together... So anyway, because of this stigma you'd find that people, myself included, would not post pictures of shoots or new bits and bobs on our personal pages out of fear of offending someone we know, as lets face it - not everyone is into shooting! so we create pages where we can join like minded people and stay out of the way of those that would be offended, but it would appear that not even this is good enough... the anti's out there join these pages, complain about them, report them, and so on...
As a result we find the media jumping on the hype (as they do), and Facebook then need to be seen to act, so they start deleting pages... they won't delete the anti's pages that make constant threats of violence and openly support breaking the law to stop a legal pursuit as that might upset them, but they'll delete ours! so we find ourselves in a position where yet again we have to fall back into the shadows.
So what does this mean for our Facebook page? well if it gets deleted it gets deleted, there isn't much i can do about that unfortunately, as although we don't buy or sell, we show guns publicly... but that won't stop us being around, as you may have seen we have a Google+ page which we post on from time to time, but also we 'll just up the anti on YouTube, bringing you more updates which would hopefully fill the void that is left from a lack of Facebook....
I'd also encourage you to join as many web based forums as you can/want! its been commented on several times that the day of the forum is limited as Facebook offers an easier way to view groups etc, but why limit yourself? there are some great communities out there that regulate their own content, where you can post as many for sales adds as you want! and to be honest most have top atmospheres where the less, how shall we put it... "desirable" folk that give us a bad name are weeded out leaving a core of enthusiasts that will continue to drive our sport in the right direction. hell knows i may even start one myself with the way it's going!
At the end of the day this is purely my opinion for what its worth, but if we do disappear overnight that's by no means the end of Replica Reviews! my advise to all those concerned about the future of shooting pages on Facebook - regroup on the many forums available, where freedom of speech actually means freedom of speech and not just agree with the owner or I'll delete you! contrary to popular believe across the masses - THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND FACEBOOK. people all thought the same about my space or whatever it was called and that fell off the face of the earth quick enough. shootings future is bright, we just have to go back in time and remember the forums!
just my opinion of course but until we are deleted (which after this i fear may be soon!!) i'll keep posting all the lovely non sales posts from all the latest shows, trips and anything else i can think of!
