Overnight Open Thread (12-5-2013)

Army Lt. Col. Doesn't Understand the Second Amendment, Constitution

Hoo boy this one just gives me a headache. Lt. Col Robert Bateman published an essay in Esquire in which he calls for complete gun control and ends up showing how unclear he is on the 2A and the Constitution in general.

Now Lt. Col. Bateman qualified as Airborne and a Ranger and is a military historian having written several books and taught at West Point. So he's not a nobody without any cred. Yet like so many others he gets hung up on the initial clause of the Second Amendment ("A well Regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state.") and pretty much runs off the rails after that.

Fundamentally he doesn't accept the Supreme Court's Heller decision at all. His counter-argument: Well he just knows better and they're all wrong. For him the militia = the National Guard and therefore civilians have no right to own firearms.

Oh and if he were king, he has a few modest royal pronouncements in mind:

1. The only guns permitted will be the following:

• a. Smoothbore or Rifled muzzle-loading blackpowder muskets. No 7-11 in history has ever been held up with one of these.
• b. Double-barrel breech-loading shotguns. Hunting with these is valid.
• c. Bolt-action rifles with a magazine capacity no greater than five rounds. Like I said, hunting is valid. But if you cannot bring down a defenseless deer in under five rounds, then you have no fking reason to be holding a killing tool in the first place.

[See King Bateman is indeed a merciful and generous liege allowing people like yourselves to own something that goes bang - M.]

2. We will pry your gun from your cold, dead, fingers. That is because I am willing to wait until you die, hopefully of natural causes. Guns, except for the three approved categories, cannot be inherited. When you die your weapons must be turned into the local police department, which will then destroy them. (Weapons of historical significance will be de-milled, but may be preserved.)

3. Police departments are no longer allowed to sell or auction weapons used in crimes after the cases have been closed. (That will piss off some cops, since they really need this money. But you know what they need more? Less violence and death. By continuing the process of weapon recirculation, they are only making their jobs -- or the jobs of some other cops -- harder.)

4. We will submit a new tax on ammunition. In the first two years it will be 400 percent of the current retail cost of that type of ammunition. (Exemptions for the ammo used by the approved weapons.) Thereafter it will increase by 20 percent per year.

5. We will initiate a nationwide "buy-back" program, effective immediately, with the payouts coming from the DoD budget. This buy-back program will start purchasing weapons at 200 percent of their face value the first year, 150 percent the second year, 100 percent the third year. Thereafter there will be a 10 year pause, at which point the guns can be sold to the government at 10 percent of their value for the next 50 years.

[Okay his lordship is a tad weak in the econ area but that doesn't mean he still doesn't know what's best for all of you]

6. The major gun manufactures of the United States, less those who create weapons for the federal government and the armed forces, will be bought out by the United States of America, for our own damned good.

Okaaay - I don't even know what to say at this point.  I think this whole essay is clear evidence that a) some people simply don't get the whole concept of a constitutional republic b) when you leave your domain of expertise, there's no limit to the amount of stupid you can achieve, and c) under no circumstances must Robert Bateman ever be allowed even a scrap of political power. And it's also a reminder that there are some good reasons why the US is a civilian-run republic.

Update: Herschel Smith at The Captain's Journal who's familiar with Bateman's previous work says he's just an academic troll:

And thus has Bateman shored up his progressive credentials one more time, and gotten the attention he so desperately wants, all at the same time. In the future, pay no attention to Mr. Bateman. He’s a publicity hound and attention seeker, and uses inflammatory and exaggerated rhetoric to evoke responses. The internet calls this a “troll.” It’s just that he’s a troll with credentials – and he’s an expert on everything. If you don’t believe it, just ask him.

Andrew Sullivan and the Great Porn Gap

Unintentional funneh I assume since Sullivan has no known sense of humor.

For reasons I won't share, I was poking around Andrew Sullivan's site this week and stumbled across the following: apparently, there's a "porn gap." In "high-income cities" the top five search terms on porn-video websites are "1. Gay 2. Ebony 3. Teen 4. Lesbian and 5. MILF  while in low-income cities they are 1. Teen 2. Lesbian 3. MILF 4. Ebony 5. Gay."

The first thing to cross my mind, obviously, was What would Charles Murray have to say about this?

But then, that question turns out to be easier to answer than you might think.

A weekend Wall Street Journal essay-"Charles Murray on the porn class divide"-practically writes itself. He would look back on the good old days, when both the upper and lower classes had to watch the same pornography, so that no matter how much money your family had, at least you'd have some shared social experience. And there'd be a quiz, so that the rich could realize how little they understand about blue-collar porn.

But the best part is that Murray could even recycle his last title: Coming Apart.

The Douchebag Manifesto

"I gotta be me, as the douchebag credo goes."

- Ace of Spades, Nov. 20, 2012<

Hackivist types never take a warning and just keep going until they get busted and then it's all Bush's fault or something.

Felonious Topiary

What the fuck is wrong with our country these days?

7 Horrifying Things You Didn't (Want to) Know About Prison

Inmates train for riots. At yard time, you'll see a ton of them doing martial arts together. Sometimes they'll start a fight with three or four guys just to see what our response is, that way they're able to work up a counter for it. They figure out what our moves are, and then they practice their methods for beating us while we watch

...That's one of the reasons we let them have things like Xboxes and PlayStations. If you give them video games, they'll be less likely to start fights. So once a week we'd hook up a bunch of TVs in a classroom so all of the murderers and rapists could play Halo. There's nothing more interesting than seeing guys who have killed multiple people deathmatching each other. Teabagging seems a lot less innocent when you know it might end with one of the aforementioned riots.

Speaking of which ...

#4. Anything Can Spark a Riot

In Defense of the Going Out Shirt

It's being unfairly maligned.

The wild American bro is most recognizable by its ubiquitous nighttime camouflage: thigh-length swaths of cotton, collars pointed outward like airplane wings, sleeves rolled up and flared out like a Musketeer's. This is known in bro circles as the "going-out shirt." It is the bro's uniform whenever he goes to clubs, bars, house parties, or-god help us-dates. It is always worn untucked with jeans (boot cut, of course), and is considered the "dressed up" alternative to a T-shirt or polo.

I've still got a Going Out shirt or two and the bottom line is that I just look (and feel) good in it.

Dog Breed "Improvement"

Breeding has done a lot of damage to dog breeds.

The English bulldog has come to symbolize all that is wrong with the dog fancy and not without good reason; they suffer from almost every possible disease. A 2004 survey by the Kennel Club found that they die at the median age of 6.25 years (n=180). There really is no such thing as a healthy bulldog. The bulldog's monstrous proportions makes them virtually incapable of mating or birthing without medical intervention.

Yahoo group. That is all.

The group thingy. And the middle class.

And my Twitter spew.

Tonight's post brought to you by it should be ready now:

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posted by Maetenloch at 10:49 PM

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