Gun Law

In late October 2013, Mr. Metcalf wrote a column for Guns & Ammo magazine where he said . “The fact is all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.” He said that too many gun owners believed that the constitution prohibits any regulation of firearms. He noted that all rights are regulated, like freedom of speech. “You cannot falsely and deliberately shout, ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater,” .

The backlash from the pro-gun lobby was swift. Readers threatened to cancel their subscriptions. His byline , by one of the country’s pre-eminent gun journalists who has taught history at Cornell and Yale, has disappeared. Death threats poured in by email. His television program was pulled from the air. Gun companies have stopped flying him around the world and sending him the latest weapons to review. Just days after the column appeared, Mr. Metcalf said, his editor called to tell him that two major gun manufacturers had said “in no uncertain terms” that they could no longer do business with InterMedia Outdoors, the company that publishes Guns & Ammo and co-produces his TV show, if he continued to work there. He was let go immediately.

“I’ve been vanished, disappeared,” Mr. Metcalf,said. “Now you see him. Now you don’t.”  He has become a pariah in the gun industry, to which, he said, he has devoted nearly his entire adult life.

 When writers stray from the party line promoting an absolutist view of an unfettered right to bear arms, their publications — often under pressure from advertisers — excommunicate them.

In 2012, Jerry Tsai, the editor of Recoil magazine, wrote that the Heckler & Koch MP7A1 gun, designed for law enforcement, was “unavailable to civilians and for good reason.” He was pressured to step down, and despite apologizing, has not written since. In 2007, Jim Zumbo, by then the author of 23 hunting books, wrote a blog post for Outdoor Life’s website suggesting that military-style rifles were “terrorist” weapons, best avoided by hunters. His writing, television and endorsement deals were quickly put on hiatus.

“We are locked in a struggle with powerful forces in this country who will do anything to destroy the Second Amendment,” said Richard Venola, a former editor of Guns & Ammo. “The time for ceding some rational points is gone.” (Venola had murder charges against him dismissed in Arizona last year. He said he was defending himself after fatally shooting a neighbor during an argument.)

Metcalf was told that advertisers feared customers would boycott their products if they continued to advertise on TV shows and magazines featuring his work.

Garry James, a senior editor at Guns & Ammo, said in a phone interview “advertisers obviously always have power, and you always feel some pressure.”