This week a teenager posted a story about issues involving a gun on trapshooters.com. Whether the kid was right or wrong in writing his thread - I won't comment. However what I do have a real problem with is all the folks (no named) folks that posted their comments on his thread.
These wonderful examples of what our society has risen to called the kid a crook, scam artist among other things. The terrible thing is that this mutual admiration society of bad behavior continue to thrive on this website. It is the same old crew with absolutely nothing good to say about anyone or anything.
One fellow went to the thread that ran last year prior to a shoot about a kid named Cole. This guy left his dribble on the kids recent thread and then bumped the other thread just keep the mess stirred up. I would say that these types of folks are the bad and ugly part of our shooting community.
I don't know who this band of bad behavior brothers are and I try not to confront them because I feel like that is not the right thing to do. It wouldn't be a good reflection of who I am and it would drag me down to their low level of existence. I try to promote the good things about the sport and not the bad whenever possible.
When trapshooters.com and the shooting community lost Pat Ireland they lost the true spokesman of the spirit of what trapshooting really is. He could take a bad situation and interject his brand of humor and his comments would normally turn the tide in the conversation.
With his exit the trapshooters.com forum has been left with a bunch of "who can post the worst response" losers that feed on each others responses with little resistance. I use trapshooters.com to promote NC Trapshooting and I am seriously thinking about exiting the forum if the bad behavior continues.
Don't get me wrong because there are good folks on the forum and some great dealers that really help the trapshooting community. It reminds me about a story a fellow told me years ago about an experience he had in his kitchen. He told me that he had invited folks over and was going to prepare a few steaks for his guests. He had a rather frisky dog and amongst all the confusion his dog managed to drag the plate that the steaks were on off into the trashcan. Others that were helping with the party dumped all kinds of stuff into the trashcan not realizing that their steaks were in the can. When the host went to get the steaks he couldn't find them and realized what might have happened. I guess the moral of the story is - sometimes you have to dig through a bunch of trash to get to the meat of the matter.