[unethical_ban]

Holy Hell, you are right. I actually have the distinguished privilege of having one of my NYTimes comments be a "Times Pick", meaning the ed. board actually read it and recommended it for insight, I suppose.

My comment was mostly meta, calling out people for missing the point of an op-ed. The op-ed was from a privacy/civil liberties person about why a "no buy" list for guns would be a bad idea. He wasn't arguing on the merits for or against gun ownership, just that these secret lists on which LEO acts are dangerous.

Every comment was something along the lines of "What about my right not to be shot in the streets?!" - I tried to point this myopic view out, and every reply to my comment was "What about my right not to be shot in the streets?!".

As a smallish-government liberal (Public services are well and good but government should be kept in check by a powerful and vigilant population) I get torn up whenever I defend gun rights or spending reductions on that website.