In September of 1993, America Online (AOL) granted Usenet access to its subscribers. The infrastructure was crippled by the sudden, overwhelming influx of new users, none of whom knew the protocols or cared to learn. These were the days when a 28.8k modem was considered screamingly fast, bandwidth was precious, nobody had the time to sift through countless “me too!” posts.
In early 1994, Dave Fischer referred to this period as the September that Never Ended, and the name stuck. Usenet was, for all intents, dead as a medium and would never recover.
11/05/08 will go down in history as the gun industry’s version of this phenomenon. I have seen more lunacy in the last six months than I’ve seen in my entire life. I’ve heard conspiracies that would make Art Bell chortle, and trust me, that guy believed in everything. I thought it would die out, but it hasn’t.