That was kinda cool but…

Late last night I got a link from Instapundit to my Did we just win? post. Early this morning I got a link to the same post from Say Uncle. A little bit later the same post was linked by Michael Bane.

Reynolds and Uncle were characteristically brief but Bane said something that was almost embarrassing to me:

Joe Huffman of The View From North Central Idaho and the majordomo of the Boomershoots has emerged as an important voice in the gun blogosphere, and I think today’s column shows why…

I didn’t think the post was all that strong. I was pushing the envelope with it. I really was overstating things some. I knew it, but figured I could put up a plausible defense of it if I really had to.

But regardless of how shaky the ground I was on something on the order of 7000 (adding a “fudge factor” for the RSS readers which don’t show up on Sitemeter) people read it in a single day. The day isn’t quite over yet and here are the numbers compared to a typical day of about 600 visits:

I’ve spoke about gun rights before crowds of 500 to 700 before. That was a little intimidating but I was very well prepared and confidant of my material. But a crowd of 7000?

It kinda cool that 7000 people in one day read at least a sentence or two of something I wrote. But it’s also kinda…well different. I grew up on a farm and went to two room grade school nearby that had eight grades for a total of about 30 kids. I didn’t have a lot of social contact until I went to a high school where I was in the biggest class ever (the record still holds) which was 125 graduating seniors. The entire town of Orofino, at it’s peak, was only about 3500 people. Yet, twice that many people in a single day read what I wrote and a well known (in some circles) T.V. personality says I’m “an important voice in the gun blogosphere”. Wow. As Sebastian said while I was writing this, I’m just another guy with an opinion.

I think maybe I should be more careful of what I write.

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8 thoughts on “That was kinda cool but…

  1. Joe, Congratulations on all the important links to your post and the increased traffic. I completely agree with Michael Bane that you are an important voice in the gun blogosphere.

    About that White House statement though, I don’t think it’s accurate to say they’re view on open carry is it’s “no big deal.” They said if the state laws allow it, it’s legal.

    Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said people are entitled to carry weapons outside such events if local laws allow it. “There are laws that govern firearms that are done state or locally,” he said. “Those laws don’t change when the president comes to your state or locality.”

    To me, there could very well be an unspoken part which follows this message. “at least until common sense national gun laws regularize the terrible disparity which now exists among the states.”

    In other words, far from being a gun-rights victory, this could have been a reluctant acquiescence on the part of the White House to the hodge-podge and ineffectual gun laws we have in place today.

  2. There are hits on your website.

    Then there is being thoughtful, interesting, and well-written.

    You deserve the former because your website fulfills the latter.

    And heck, where else can one go to read about blowing things up legally?

  3. Important, and respected. At least by this blogger.

    For the record, I didn’t think you overstated anything. Optimistic, yes, but not overstated.

  4. I think the server meltdowns occur from links from Rush Limbaugh and Coast to Coast AM.

    Tam would only add something on the order of another 2K visits. I did a little bit of math and it looked to me like I wasn’t pushing the server all that hard even at the peak of the Instalanche.

  5. “I think maybe I should be more careful of what I write.”

    Hell no. Keep doing exactly what you’ve been doing here for years.

  6. Read you every day, I am supprised to find the actual numbers of others that do are in fact that low. The logic and common sense you display would lead me to believe you would have a much larger readership. I promise that from this point forward I will do everything posible to increase the the number of your daily readers. I have greatly enjoyed your blog since I found it more than ayear ago. Boomershoot is at the top of my bucketlist, but just not in my budget this year, but soon, very soon. Keep up the good work, I look forward to it every day. Thank You, Harvey Beaver

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