Google hosting Biden for a "fireside chat" about gun control

[Harry Schell]

So Google has decided to mouthpiece for Biden.

I notice Dave Kopel, Alan Gura or John Lott, to piock a few, are not invited to "hang" with Biden.

I sense a lovefest in the making.

I clicked on Guy Kawasaki and he is some kind of author. More interesting are the questions posted for him to ask the Great Man...I might add one or two. It might be a good idea to post a question or comment if you have time.

One already is inquiring why Mexican cartels can have them and we can't, and a number more in that vein.

I suspect Biden will only get the softballs, but his fellow "hangers" might learn something from well-thought questions.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/fireside-hangouts-join-vice-president.html

[Doheny]

How many people are going to stop using Google products now?

[glocksmith]

Me.

[MasterYong]

How many people are going to stop using Google products now?

No one. Google is a complete monopoly, as the only other viable search engines are using Google's index (duckduckgo is a good example).

Yahoo! and bing are worthless. Even more so when Microsoft took over ad serving for Yahoo! and started processing their organic search results a couple years back.

Source: SEM. My profession.

It's like saying you'll boycott petroleum products. Interesting idea, but pretty much everything in modern society relies on or somehow contains petroleum products, so it's more or less impossible unless you live in a cave somewhere.

Can't really "stop" using Google. They provide so many services- even if you forgo having a decent search engines and stop using Google.com altogether you'll never escape everything else they do such as hosting, etc. Their Display Ad network is the largest in the world, and shows up on nearly every site you use, and Google most often gets paid for those pageviews (PPM, or paying for impressions rather than clicks).

Google's usually very "soft anti" on guns. For example, they don't allow for the advertisement of firearms parts or firearms themselves in AdWords, but will allow advertisement for some related products. It's all a PR thing for them. Same reason they don't allow advertising for websites that sell e-cigarettes or tobacco products. They've chosen to disallow those markets in AdWords and other advertising platforms because it makes them look "good" to the people who don't like those products, and relatively neutral to those that do like them. This "discussion" they want to have with Biden is an uncharacteristic move for them, and I'll remain cautiously optimistic until I see how it goes down.

Anyways. Got on a longer rant than I intended. Point being, the only real way to boycott Google at this point is to stop using the Internet.

[hoit624]

As much as I want to stop using Google products because of this, it means I would have to buy an iPhone. *face palm*

Decisions, decisions.

[Mitch]

As much as I want to stop using Google products because of this, it means I would have to buy an iPhone. *face palm*

Decisions, decisions.

Guy Kawasaki first achieved fame working for Apple!

[wjc]

I stopped using Google a few months ago because of crap like this.

Use http://www.ixquick.com instead.

[nothinghere2c]

so much crap is owned by google you can't really boycott them sadly. nor would 25% of america boycotting them put a dent in business.

[a1c]

Google is in the business of eyeballs. Gun control is a controversial subject. That will bring people online.

Don't discount either the number of Google engineers who are gun owners. I can tell you a lot of techies in Mountain View are AR nerds who might hang out on this forum right now.

[CrazyPhuD]

Actually I stopped using google for most things after they removed the gun listings. Bing is usually perfectly serviceable. Google used to try to recruit me semi-regularly via linked in. The next message I got from them after the google shopping change I told them that due to their policy of censorship that I wouldn't be interested in working for them and since it was unlikely this policy would change in the future I asked them if they would place me on whatever do not recruit lists existed at google. I haven't heard from them since so I assume I was successful. That was my protest, not only am I not interested in using your products, I am now also uninterested in working for you.

[curtisfong]

Don't discount either the number of Google engineers who are gun owners. I can tell you a lot of techies in Mountain View are AR nerds who might hang out on this forum right now.

I have a feeling that absolutely none of them have any power in the company. In my experience, they're never the ones running things, even at a place like google.

If google management wants to suck up to Obama and his cronies.. well this is the way to do it. If there are nerds who like guns @google, you can bet their concerns aren't even a blip on the radar.

[woodsman]

Joe thinks a double barrel shotgun is the ultimate home defense weapon as an AR is much harder to use and hit something. LOL

From what I saw Biden did some back peddling. He did his usual spin on statistics. what I got out of it is they think magazine capacity has the bigger chance of being infringed.

[pMcW]

Just caught the end of it. What I learned:

• Assault weapons are hardly a problem, but we should solve it anyway.
• Some Glocks have "cartridges" with "2, 6, 8, 12, 32 shells"
• Some cartridges hold many clips!
• Assault weapons are really hard to use. (and yet somehow, it is so easy to kill so many people with them.)
• 50 round magazines have no sporting purpose.
• Buy more shotgun shells!

Sigh!

[dchem]

Just caught the end of it. What I learned:

• Assault weapons are hardly a problem, but we should solve it anyway.
• Some Glocks have "cartridges" with "2, 6, 8, 12, 32 shells"
• Some cartridges hold many clips!
• Assault weapons are really hard to use. (and yet somehow, it is so easy to kill so many people with them.)
• 50 round magazines have no sporting purpose.
• Buy more shotgun shells!

Sigh!

Only thing that made any sense on that list is the last one.

[LOW2000]

I caught the highlights on the Phil DeFranco Show today. Phil is typically pretty liberal, and generally doesn't give a **** about guns, but is open to logic, so based on the questions he is asking, I think a lot of people who otherwise don't care about guns are really questioning WTF all these gun bans expect to accomplish. The kool-aid drinkers will always hate guns, but if more guys like him start seeing the reality, I think that is a very good sign for us.