2023 was my 12th year blogging at Gun Culture 2.0 (est. 2012) and my 5th year blogging at Gun Curious (est. 2019). Although both of these blogs peaked in 2020 in terms of visitors and page views, I’m grateful for the opportunity to reach one of my key publics in this medium.
Below you will see the Top 10 most viewed posts on this blog from 2023. In a separate post I will list the Top 10 most viewed blogs on my Gun Curious blog. (Note that I am retiring my Gun Curious blog for reasons explained in this post.)
Some of my blog readership decline in 2022 and 2023 is certainly due to the launch of my “Light Over Heat” YouTube channel, itself a response to declining blog readership in 2021. And I have been very preoccupied with finishing my book manuscript on American gun culture.
But between my two blogs, I managed to post roughly 200 times per year in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. Still, combined site statistics show a linear decline over this period, totaling 42% for visitors per post and 65% for page views per post.
Even with my “Light Over Heat” YouTube channel, I still enjoy blogging more so thank you to those of you who read and engage my work here. I am not going anywhere (yet), so here’s to a productive 2024!
Following are the most viewed posts on this blog that were written in 2023. Some older posts that continue to do well are excluded, like shooting the MAG-40 qualification course and my work on church security (which I really need to re-boot).
Unlike my friend Greg Ellifritz, who frets that his most important posts are in a different class from his most viewed posts, I think each of the ten most viewed posts on this blog is substantively significant, so if you haven’t read any of them yet, please do!
[1] Taking Fire from “The Gun Community”
[3] I Have Been Thinking About This Gun I Own and Asking Myself Questions About Responsibility
[4] TL:DR on Firearms Classes Taught Me Very Different Lessons than Harel Shapira Blog Post (short version of post #6 below)
[5] Why I Almost Abandoned My Effort to Bring Light and Turn Down the Heat on Guns (Light Over Heat #49)
[6] Firearms Classes Taught Me Very Different Lessons than Harel Shapira Learned in His Study (full version of TL:DR post #4 above)
[7] Travels with Sandy: In Search of America’s Gun Cultures
[8] The Law of Self-Defense is an Essential But Low Standard
[9] Travels with Sandy: In Search of America’s Gun Cultures in Grinnell, Iowa
[10] What If We Begin Discussions of Guns With Our Commonalities Rather Than Differences?
Gun Culture 2.0 
Happy New Year, David! And keep on keeping on!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I use an RSS (Feedly) and usually don’t click through to the actual post. I did here and used the links to read a number of them. I need to click through more often. The comments here are some of the best you’ll find – I’m not used to seeing so many people using their own names and being so civil.
LikeLike