Guns and Shooting Online Update November, 2021

As you are aware, our good friend Chuck Hawks passed away on August 23, 2021. It was Chuck’s wish that his life’s work continue to be a resource for gun and shooting enthusiasts around the world. He asked me to ensure that happens.

On October 5, 2021, I accepted the inheritance of chuckhawks.com, Guns and Shooting Online, and the three associated domains: chuckhawks.com, gunsandshootingonline.com, and gunsandshooting.com. As most of you can imagine, it was a bittersweet event. What my friend Chuck had assembled since 1997 is massive: some six thousand articles. I've been Senior Editor and chief contributor to G&S Online for many years and have remained in that position until Chuck's passing. I also own randywakeman.com and the Randy Wakeman Outdoors YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClMccPSKG3inStWljqgXbMA .

I've never been involved with any subscriptions or memberships, and have had nothing to do with the “Member Side” of G&S Online. Nor have I ever had any access to G&S Online banking, accounting, or financials . . . that was all Chuck Hawks. The first order of business was to ensure that the lifetime work of Chuck Hawks did not vanish into the ether. You've probably seen many websites come and go. Life happens, then suddenly mountains of information accumulated over decades is gone for good. My promise to my good friend Chuck is that I would not let this happen to chuckhawks.com. To that end, I've paid past due web-hosting bills, have transferred the site and domain names, and have already paid for the next three years of web-hosting. This website is not going anywhere while I am still functional, and I'm updating my affairs to make sure chuckhawks.com continues in the event I'm not around as well. The Estate of Charles Hawks is in probate, and it sounds like another six months or so will pass before things are settled. I won't know exactly what I have to work with until then.

For those of you that are internet-savvy, this site was written by Chuck in plain html, with everything hard-coded to absolute paths. Quick or automated updates are not possible, as the design program for this website was essentially Notepad, and everything has to be done page by page. I well understand that some like to browse the net with their phones or watches, and a responsive WordPress site is preferable today. That will require conversion of what Chuck referred to as over 8000 discreet url's. Conversion costs can run $150 per page. It is enough to give anyone great pause. I'm currently working with developers behind the scene, to find the most sustainable options.

With that, I'd like to thank all G & S Online readers for their support and I can assure you that this site has been made safe and secure to the best of my ability, and will remain alive and well on the web for the foreseeable future.