Despite your school-yard Jerry Springer rendition of her behavior, you misconstrue what happened.

Tam implied that Kim is nothing other than an “enthusiastic hobbyist” who has little else in the way of expertise than owning a few guns and reading a few books. In actuality, Kim is a military veteran who served during battle and insurgency, and has seen the effects of shootings first-hand. While this doesn’t give him the Wand of Perpetual Righteousness, Tam’s carpet assessment of Kim’s worth as a gun blogger was not only crass and rude, it was factually wrong. Compounded, Tam opened comments and allowed others to make crass, rude, and factually wrong comments about Kim, as well.

Those who know Tam would say my reaction reveals a shallow sense of humor. I’ll let her speak for herself, when she said:

“After all, if I know more about the topic than you do and have more hands-on experience than you do, why should I listen?” The odd part is, Tam’s disdainful, self-aggrandizing attitude in that post seemed to imply that Kim was talking about military weapons, but the entire thrust of his discussion was about the Army’s procurement process. The weapon (the M16) was an unimportant footnote, which Tam brought to the forefront as a straw man in order to make fun of someone like a jealous, insolent child. As in,

“Perhaps he’d like to hear my opinions on supermarket loyalty cards. After all, I own and use several of them quite proficiently, and I’ve read about them, so surely my opinions are every bit as valid…” For those who don’t know, Kim’s career has centered around the supermarket industry.

The fact is, Tam made ad hominem attacks in the midst of factual errors, and the target of her “snark” (read: attack) deserves an apology. Until that apology happens, I won’t read her blog any more. That probably won’t hurt Tam’s feelings, but hurting her feelings isn’t my intention.

Here puss, puss, puss.

Regardless, I wish you two the best in whatever you do!

I don’t think folks realize just how stubborn a man he can be, despite all the years of consistent principles they’ve read from him. When he says “Bye” he means it. He played in a rock band for 10 years and then put down his bass guitar, never to perform again.

Now me, on the other hand? I’m a nut case, but I am truly hanging it up this time, too.