Everybody has their own opinion of what is right and wrong, good and evil, acceptable behavior etc. True, there are givens that have been accepted by pretty much everyone for centuries or more, but other things are much more grey. The problem with making veiled statments about someone elses character is that everyone assumes the worst. Again, we all have our own ideas of what would make someone a bad role model and since we have no specifics, we assume he meets our own criteria when in fact it may be something that we don't care about at all. If a guy goes out and gets roaring drunk every Saturday night, some people would be appalled by it. Other wouldn't care. If some guy smokes pot, some people would have him put in irons, others wouldn't care at all. If a guy chases women all the time, some would have him sterilized, others wouldn't care in the least.
I for one don't care if the person mentioned is a role model or not. I would appreciate his input on the subject of this forum: guns, shooting, handloading etc.
This ties in with a very popular current news story. When it comes to election to the baseball hall of fame I don't care what Pete Rose did other than the fact that he was certainly one of the greatest baseball players of all time. His personal life may have been a mess, but on the field as a player he was not only hall of fame material but would be one of the best players in the hall of fame regardless of era. It is the BASEBALL hall of fame not the role model hall of fame. I am sure plenty of dirt could be dug up about a lot of members of the hall, but I don't see why you would want to.