Esquire owes its existence to English foppery: a perfectly dreadful combination of elitism and, uh, give me a moment would you? Shotguns (and hunting and hunting dogs and hunting clothes) are as important to the English upper class’s self-image as bumping uglies with servants is to their genetic health. So it’s no surprise that Esquire scribe Lt. Col. Robert Bateman’s five-point plan to “fix” the Second Amendment—in the sense that one fixes a dog—starts by exempting double-barrel breech-loading shotguns. “Hunting with these is valid,” he asserts, aping aristocrats who believe that an accident of birth is all the justification one needs for any firmly held opinion. Bateman’s list also exempts police from any of his gun control platform—because they work for the Powers That Be, of course. His is a vision of totalitarian hell as seen through the eyes of a champagne socialist. Scary stuff . . .
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.
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.
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.
[h/t CCW Guy]