Having either moderated or admined message forums since 1986, and as a member of that forum (though I last frequented it in March), I was curious about this issue, so I reviewed their rules. Here's what I found:
- "The DefensiveCarry.com forums have grown tremendously and we thank all of you for being part of this community committed to concealed weapons carry."
- "9. We have learned from bitter experience that discussions of certain subjects (politics, religion, abortion, sexual orientation, etc) often degenerate quickly. For this reason, we prohibit these subjects in our discussions. We also discourage "caliber wars" and the virtues of "open carry" topic; strongly encouraging you to take these discussions to other forums where these topics are the focus." (emphasis mine)
Given these two statements, they've made it quite clear they don't want to hear anything about open carry. Apparently, they'll tolerate it if it's mentioned in passing, but if you begin to extol its virtues, to them, you're proselytizing, and that's verbotten on a forum dedicated to concealed carry.
As an administrator, I'm saddened when I see mods and admins opt for censure instead of active moderation. I've admined/moderated many forums about which all the "hot topics" mentioned in Rule 9 were allowed, and we didn't have a tenth the problem some forums seem to have while discussing how long it takes paint to dry. Then again, while we encouraged "spirited debate," we also had a few well-written, clear and concise, as well as unwaivering rules as to how to conduct that "spirited debate," and if people went over the edge, there was a long drop.
Still, we never permabanned anyone. We simply kept tabs on how many times they'd been suspended and kept increasing the number of days they'd have off before returning, usually using prime numbers as our list. It didn't take long before they either conformed to the rules, or quit trying.