Many of the state admins pleaded with Solomon to allow them to maintain PDO. He chose to let it die.
As told by the CA state admin: (before its ultimate demise)
August 9, 2006 09:52:52 Subject: The sad state of Packing.Org
jonm
Joined: April 25, 2006 20:14:22
Messages: 97
Location: Santa Barbara County
Offline
I am embarrassed to say that I am (was) the California admin for Packing.Org. The site is currently down (a frequent problem), but when I was able to update things, I always did. When questions were posed to me I always responded. When help was asked for, I did my best to provide it. I kept things as current as I was able to. There are several posters here on CaliforniaCCW who know me from PDO, and they can vouch for my commitment to the cause. The site owner, Mark Solomon, decided to take the site another direction by eliminating the ability to moderate it. When he did that, he also took away respective state admin’s ability to easily modify it.
There were around 35 committed people acting as state admins at PDO (some maintaining more than one state). After Mr. Solomon made his changes to the format, and as well as his changes in attitude about the site itself, the site went to hell in a hand basket.
If there are any members here who can remember what PDO was prior to August of 2005, you will remember what a stellar site it was. It was the best CCW site on the Internet, hands down. Content was on topic and chat was limited to relevant topics. Now it is a name calling, cop bashing, assault weapon chat room, filled with vulgarities. And that's only when the server is up.
Calls to Mr. Solomon (both by phone and by email) go without response. The majority of my fellow state admins have abandoned the site because they don't want to be associated with it any longer. I can now be counted in that group.
I have since submitted an unanswered email to Mr. Solomon requesting that my name be removed from the California page.
I want to warn everyone here NOT to rely on anything on PDO!
If you want to know anything about another state's policies, and you want it form a reliable source, be sure to visit http://handgunlaw.us" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
That site is maintained by, among others, a guy whom I admire greatly for his honesty and integrity, Gary Slider. Gary, I'm glad to say, has joined this site. Although he is not a California resident, he has a wealth of knowledge that I know he would be willing to share.
Stay safe, please