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The Punisher

22 Sep 2007 07:00 pm

It's a little-known fact, but my family was killed by gangsters and in addition to blogging I have a secret persona as a deadly vigilante:

punisher.jpg

More from my day at the gun range here, also featuring such pundits as Megan McArdle and Julian Sanchez standing around waiting for their turn to shoot.

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Comments (56)

Is your penis really that small?

Is your penis really that small?

It's not, but yours will be when Matt blows it off with his BIG FUCKING GUN!

I can't tell if that's "adorably nerdy" (to use Wonkette's phrase) or the next Bernard Goetz in training.

Clearly you are Rudy's Second Amendment advisor.

Oh, and I'm reminded of this quote from an old Exile article on a demonstration of commando techniques held by the Russian OMON security forces:

"Liberal journalists are supposed to loathe guns and war. No doubt some do. But I suspect there is a 12-year-old commando inside even the likes of John Pilger who loves these beautiful little death machines. And there is nothing like a fully tricked-out Russian machine gun. Holding those OMON assault rifles swelled within me a strong if long dormant desire to "play guns," to run around outside and pretend to shoot people and be shot. This is a universal urge, like sex and breakfast. Just ask the global paintball industry."

http://old.exile.ru/2007-May-18/the_kingdom_of_omon.html

Sorry to hear about your family.

Just don't go rescuing child prostitutes, Travis.

'Gun' vs. 'Rifle'

Marauder Matt gets it right!

Oh, and lest I forget:

"The truth is that every intelligent man, as you know, dreams of being a gangster and of ruling over society by force alone."

-- Albert Camus, The Fall

Matthew Yglesias - Death Putz.

too-hot-for-trenchcoat

So you think two shotguns means you don't have to work on those abs, young man?

An armed society is a faintly ridiculous society?

When guns are outlawed, only liberals will have guns?

er,

When conservatives are outlawed, only liberals will have guns?

er, er

When liberals have guns, all conservatives will be outlawed?

nah

Call Blackwater, please. I need help.

Oh boy. Sadly No isn't going to like this at all.

greatest 3 second video ever

Love the rose colored transition glasses.

I don't know why, but something about Matt's legs and feet looks a bit odd in this picture...

Perhaps the lack of a manly straddling pose reveals the essential weediness behind the two-gun machismo.

Is that at Prince Georges Trap 'n Skeet out in Greenbelt? I love that place...

You've lost weight.

My mother's father Kinnie C Smith - a probable bootlegger in east Kentucky - was shot by person(s) unknown at Little Buckhorn (a haven for bootleggers during the Depression). He lived until the 1940s and was sent to the Mayo Clinic by his older brother Judge (who was a municipal judge and probable kingpin in the family business) but died of complications from being shot months before my mother was born. I'm named after him.

My ancestor (on my mother's side) Chief Red Bird was shot dead at a fork on the Kentucky River in 1797; his death (according to dispatches from the governor of Tennessee to Philadelphia) nearly sparked a war between the Cherokee and the American Army. According to DNA testing Chief Red Bird was descended from European Jews. His ancestors had probably fled Spain for the diaspora - perhaps even Spanish Florida - and had come to Virginia in the 17th. They may have been driven into the frontier by prejudice, assimilating with the Cherokee. He was known by the name Aaron Brock.

Is your penis really that small?

Worst. Come on line. Ever.

Are you really wearing rose colored glasses?

Matt, I take my cammie jungle hat off to ya for posting such a provocative picture on a blog like this, and knowingly opening yourself up to a world of relatively literate, somewhat brutal ridicule. (better to be snarked at than shot at, say I) It's an awfully short video piece, though. Next time take a real camera--I wanna see someone get knocked on their ass from the recoil of that shotgun!

Shooting would be much more fun if I didn't have to spend so much money and schlep out to a range or some deserted public land.

I'm assuming those shotguns are rentals. Add shells, clays, and range time, it really adds up. Most of the time, I'd rather plink with a .22 and a brick of ammo at my leisure.

I've since taken up airgun and have the luxury of a 20yd range in my back yard. I can go shooting every day, and inexpensively, too.

My family was killed by bloggers. Which is why I kick back after my tedious day job as a bounty hunter/mercenary killer and get ready for some merciless, take-no-prisoners posting in the comment threads.

1) No more donuts for breakfast, fella.
2) Just ask Megan out for coffee already, would you please?

What's the real story here? This is weird. Why do you need to know how to shoot guns, and guns like those?

Did the T-Shirt come free with the guns?

Or was it the other way around?

Reading your latest Jena post just before this gave me an idea: What if you formed a posse of armed, culturally liberal bloggers, and you spent a few months blogging from Jena, LA, while keeping the peace down there? If the local lawmen refuse to officially bless your peace keeping mission, you can go ostensibly as journalists, but use LA's liberal gun laws to be armed journos.

We'd get to see how your perspectives on the case and all the other unrelated issues you blog about change, if at all, by a few months exposure in the deep South. When you got back, your Dad could co-write a screenplay with you about the experience. You'd get your WGA card, and that could spark a poignant blog post about how you were carrying on in a long and fading tradition of fathers getting their sons union cards in their industries... this is fecund with possibilities.

Hoping you and yours have been written into the book of life, MY.

I shot a rifle once. Back in the summer of 1965. I missed the target completely from 15 feet away.

My wife took an NRA shooting class and got some sort of certificate of excellence.

When they cast the gender-reversed version of "Straw Dogs", we'll be ready.

So how'd you guys do? I actually find shooting trap to be rather difficult. I'm more of a slow and steady target shooter myself.

So when the war comes, I'll be there... just hope the enemy doesn't move or something.

You spend an evening watching football in a gay bar and this is what happens to you???

So how'd you guys do? I actually find shooting trap to be rather difficult. I'm more of a slow and steady target shooter myself.

I got 12 out of 20, which I thought was pretty good for a beginner. I used to be a reasonably proficient target shooter with a rifle back in my summer camp days.

Is that at Prince Georges Trap 'n Skeet out in Greenbelt?

Yes.

He's just doing this to make the lame Republican bloggers look like weenies because they don't post with guns...

He goes to a skeet range with a Punisher shirt on...Somebody should have shot him for that alone, then acted like Dick Cheney and said Matt was to blame because he was out of position on the line...

Now if he'd have posted a shot of him with a silenced submachine gun, I would have been more impressed. There ARE places in the US where you can go and rent time with fully automatic weapons. THAT would have impressed the Republicans.

Next up for Matt: the Gunsite training school!

Then he'll be ready to be Blackwater's "house blogger" once "The Atlantic" gives him the boot for being wrong on most topics...

Or maybe he's getting ready for all those suicide bombers Iran will be sending here once Bush starts bombing them...I mean, he doesn't believe in the Iran war, but he's hedging his bets. He doesn't want to be caught short when somebody blows up his transit station on his morning commute to his workstation...

Dang, man, you're really cut! You must spend, what, two or three hours a day pumping iron? You could be in the Fantastic Four with that physique.

Freddie,

You're cold brother, cold. Not to change the subject, but pistols are more fun (I guess smaller is better).

So many decisions-- revolver or automatic; hollow point or full metal jacket; modified Weaver, Fairbairn-Applegate or (to show your disdain for Mearsheimer and Walt) Israeli method stances.

W.E. Fairbairn and Rex Applegate are worth googling. They also developed systems of hand to hand combat and knife fighting. So its an entire lifestyle for Matt to embrace.

shecky, I' w/ you on the .22 & a brick, but you must remember these are the children of the upper-middle class having a lark, fantasizing that they are the children of the wealthy class.

I am the only one who was reminded of the picture of Lee Harvey Oswald brandishing his Mannlicher-Carcano in the back yard?

Freddie, You're cold brother, cold.

Ah, I'm just joshing.

Thank you, Mr. Yglesias, for ending whatever residual interest I had in the Atlantic blogs.

Did the T-Shirt come free with the guns?

T-shirt was stolen from my brother.

No, Buckeye, not even close. It's pretty amazing to see the viscera exposed in people when a little old thing like a projectile shooting device is exposed (the gunpowder-for-propellent variety, that is). Makes the hair on the back of my neck rise up when I read comments like b-foe playing down his Doglike chose vocation...such admiration wells up.

Matt - you and Ezra went shooting on Yom Kippur. Why do you hate Yahweh, and will you atone for this next year?

Please tell me those aren't loaded.

Matt - you and Ezra went shooting on Yom Kippur. Why do you hate Yahweh, and will you atone for this next year?

Atoning is for wimps. Getting revenge is the new orthodoxy.

(And yes, I mean getting revenge for one's own sins... after projecting them onto others.)

Thank you, Mr. Yglesias, for ending whatever residual interest I had in the Atlantic blogs.

Posted by HH | September 23, 2007 9:46 AM

Thank you, Mr. Yglesias, for ending whatever residual interest HH had in the Atlantic blogs.

Get ready to unleash Heck!

I think brooksfoe won the thread, with my second place vote going to Senescent.

I think it's so cute when people dress up their pets in halloween costumes!

Ah, come on , guys.
Matthew probably read in the NY Times this morning that Blackwater security workers earn $1,000 per DAY and compared that to how much bloggers with Harvard degrees earn.

Ref: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/weekinreview/23burns.html

PS If Matthew gets a Blackwater job standing on the helicopter skids and brandishing a M16, he should remember to fasten that strap that holds you onto the helicopter.

After all, he will have the Very Serious People from the Foreign Policy Profession down on the ground rooting for him:
------------
"As the Blackwater machines cleared the landing zone’s fence that day, the American officer leaned toward a companion and, over the thwump-thwump of the Black Hawk’s rotors, voiced his contempt. “If I’ve got one ambition left here,” he said, “it’s to see one of those showboats fall out.” "

You should have made an evil face in that pic. Or is that your evil face?

So many decisions-- revolver or automatic;

Automatic - for any serious combat use, revolver just doesn't cut it.

"hollow point or full metal jacket;"

Ditto hollow point. But bullet placement means more than either.

"modified Weaver, Fairbairn-Applegate or (to show your disdain for Mearsheimer and Walt) Israeli method stances."

Hey, the Israelis aren't stupid when it comes to combat - I'll listen to any Israeli combat expert. Half the movie stars you see blasting away were trained by Israeli consultants.

That said, Weaver is the way to go when you have time, point-shooting when you don't. It's not either-or.

"W.E. Fairbairn and Rex Applegate are worth googling. They also developed systems of hand to hand combat and knife fighting."

Yup. Old-school types. But things have developed since then. Whole news systems invented to integrate hand-to-hand fighting with combat handgunning.

"So its an entire lifestyle for Matt to embrace."

Next up - Matt joins the Togakure-ryu ninjutsu school! And we get to see pics of Matt in full-blown ninja outfits crawling through the air conditioning ducts in his building and performing kuji-kiri mind control on McMegan...

Matthew, why do you ruin you reputation by associating with that hack McArdle? And why did the Atlantic hire her? Are they demented, or just stupid?


Comments closed October 06, 2007.

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