{"id":33565,"date":"2013-01-18T05:40:24","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T11:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=33565"},"modified":"2014-12-12T14:52:53","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T20:52:53","slug":"eric-black-flat-earther","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=33565","title":{"rendered":"Eric Black, Flat Earther"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hinted at this in the past few weeks; one of the hard parts about being a Second Amendment supporter is that it feels a lot like the movie Groundhog Day. \u00a0<\/em>Every time the left goes through one of its spasms of gun-grabbing, they bring up the same, exact, precise points every single time. \u00a0There is nothing new, ever, under the sun when it comes to anti-gun “arguments”. \u00a0Never!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And yet every single liberal, especially in the media, receives the same threadbare worn-out arguments from their elders during every spasm of this debate, as if they’ve discovered some new logical Killer Anti-Gun App. \u00a0And they trot them out with all the pride of a toddler that just made a good pants, repeating the moldy meme with a nod and a knowing, condescending wink, as if they think you’re lucky they suffer fools like you.<\/p>\n

And you – me, in this case – shake your head, and re-muster facts that you’ve been deploying since before your children were born, and feel a little like the burned-out gunfighter in a Clint Eastwood movie; I’ve lived this day, or at least this argument, more times than I can remember. \u00a0I know these facts backward and forward. \u00a0There is not a corner of <\/em>the left’s argument that I can’t make\u00a0<\/em>better\u00a0than the lefty I’m wasting my time with. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

And on you go.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, we’re not alone.<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

The problem with Eric Black isn’t that he’s a lefty who’s been getting steadily more “out” about it for years, in the “pages” of the MinnPost<\/em>, whose focus has been sliding away from “legitimate journalism” toward “being a DFL Public Relations organ” for this past year or so.<\/p>\n

It’s that he believes, and reports, so much that is just not so.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, he – oh, God, it’s that Groundhog Day\u00a0<\/em>endless repetition thing again – dragged out the theory by the gloriously-occuponymous Dr. Carl Bogus, that the Second Amendment was written to protect slave-owners<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I read it yesterday, and thought “even in monster movies, there’s only so many times you have to kill the critter before the movie ends”. \u00a0So with the esteemed Carl Bogus.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Joe Doakes from Como Park – an actual lawyer – took over. \u00a0I’ll add the odd bit of emphasis to Joe’s email:<\/p>\n

God, not that old chestnut again. Carl Bogus? Really?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Okay, facts: Bogus was indeed a law professor. He wrote a law review article for UC Davis in 1998. He admitted there was plenty of evidence the Founders intended the Second Amendment so ordinary people could resist tyrants. But he argued Southern slaveholders probably wanted to keep ordinary people armed to prevent slave rebellion. Therefore, the Second Amendment might have served two purposes: resist tyrants and oppress slaves. Bogus\u2019 explicit argument is that ordinary people couldn’t have resisted tyranny and oppressed slaves acting alone so when the Founders said \u201cthe people\u201d they must have meant \u201cstate militias.\u201d His implicit argument is that since slavery is bad, the Second Amendment is tainted so we can ignore it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bogus’ arguments were immediately rebutted by other legal scholars, see for example “The Approaching Death of the Collectivist Theory of the Second Amendment” by Douglas Roots, 39 Duq. L. Rev. 71.; and “The Supreme Court’s Thirty-Five Other Gun Cases” by David Kopel, 18 St. Louis U. L. Rev. 99. The Supreme Court cited several of Bogus’ works in District of Columbia v. Heller<\/span>, 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008) but the majority opinion expressly rejected his collectivist legal theory. Bogus was mentioned in Justice Stevens’ dissent in MacDonald v. Chicago<\/span>, 130 S. Ct 3020 (2010) as the source for a single statistic on handgun violence, but not even Stevens endorsed Bogus’ collectivist legal theory<\/strong>. Nobody endorses his secret slavery theory<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Bogus’ legal theories are not taken seriously by Constitutional scholars<\/strong>, only by gun-control advocates hoping to rent his diploma to give the appearance of credibility. That’s why Bogus was appointed a director of Handgun Control, Inc. and served on the advisory board of the Violence Policy Center. That\u2019s also why Eric Black cites him. It\u2019s as if the Flat Earth Society suddenly learned of this brilliant mathematician named Ptolemy who PROVED the Sun does indeed revolve around the Earth and thus vindicated what they\u2019ve believed all along<\/strong>. Sorry, fellas, serious scholars have moved beyond that hoax.<\/span><\/p>\n

Joe Doakes<\/p>\n

Como Park<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m thinking; is there an issue besides guns where a\u00a0journalist\u00a0<\/em>can get away with so much guileless\u00a0incuriosity as the gun issue?<\/p>\n

And wrap that incuriosity in so much misguided-yet-inflammatory rhetoric?<\/p>\n

\"\"

Inevitably, the MinnPost ran a photo of Confederate soldiers<\/em> along with Black’s piece. I suppose we should be thankful it wasn’t a photo of white guys lynching a black guy, huh?
That said, I suspect I just gave some clever MinnPost copy editor another bright idea for the next round of anti-gun articles, along with the next, inevitable citation of Carl Bogus as an expert on the Second Amendment. \u00a0 \u00a0You’re welcome, MinnPost.<\/p><\/div>\n

Feminist dogma patrol, maybe, and even that doesn’t generally impact the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Mark Dayton’s mental health? \u00a0That’s not so much “incuriosity” as “a gentlemans’ agreement between journalists and the DFLers who own them”.<\/p>\n

What is it about Second Amendment issues that makes so many journalists act like journalists think mere partisan bloggers act?<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

Nothing against Eric Black, of course. \u00a0He’s doing his job, which these days seems to be “advancing the DFL and Democrat Parties’ narratives”. \u00a0It’s good to have a gig.<\/p>\n

But the mainstream media in the Twin Cities has gotten a free pass on their habit of just slopping whatever crap fits the DFL’s narrative in front of the public for far too long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hinted at this in the past few weeks; one of the hard parts about being a Second Amendment supporter is that it feels a lot like the movie Groundhog Day. \u00a0Every time the left goes through one of its spasms of gun-grabbing, they bring up the same, exact, precise points every single time. \u00a0There […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[326,130,82,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-alt-media","category-tc-media-bias","category-scotus","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33565"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33567,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33565\/revisions\/33567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}