Tam opines on the topic of compromise, and how our gun control supporting proponents see it. It’s really struck me too. There are reasonable discussions that can be had in regards to the topic. I’ve argued previously on this blog that one can think of licensing regimes that would actually be less restrictive than we have now, but would successfully deal with some of their purported concerns in regards to criminal access, background checks, and the like.
But they’ve never seemed all that interested in give and take, only really the take, because guns are icky, and so are the people who own them. The only good gun owner, in their eyes, is one who agrees with their agenda of the eradication of the right. That’s why we have to be dedicated to their political destruction, and nothing less.
That’s why we have to be dedicated to their political destruction, and nothing less.
Hear! Hear!
And call me cynical, suspicious, and paranoid, but even with the recent Gallup poll showing our side appearing to gain ground, we can’t rest. Because their camp will just find new and insidious ways to curtail and destroy our rights.
Well given how they’re all piling on that latest Bill Maher show where the idea of repealing the 2nd Amendment was met with thunderous applause.
The idea of “Compromise” is just a carrot at the end of the stick.
Licensing and universal background checks aren’t appealing to them because somebody still gets a gun in the end.
Now licensing Chicago Style where they stop accepting applications shortly after opening the office. Or Mexico-Style background checks where you can only see an FFL by traveling across the country and going through a military base security screen and page huge money for the “right”.
That’s what they want. Not two parties content with a compromise.
Same goes with the Israel/Palestine “relationship”. One group wants the fighting to stop, the other group wants the fighting to stop because all the Jews are dead.
Of course Maher could fart and his audience would react the same way.
Compromise is what gun-control and other statist pressure groups expect us to do. They don’t, usually out of their sense of moral superiority.
As a tactical matter, it has seemed that any good faith compromise buys not peace but sets the marker for the next round of negotiation for their enemies to compromise some more. It is equivalent to appeasement.
I don’t really agree it’s necessarily equivalent to appeasement, though it can be. Compromise is a necessary component of the political process. But compromise is not really what our opponents are interested in, because they don’t view any of our wants and desires as legitimate. You won’t see the gun control folks getting behind legalizing suppressors or post-86 MGs even if we traded background checks at gun shows for it. There are some on our side who’d make that trade.
I wouldn’t make that trade, because ultimately I think it breaks the “no one gets thrown off the lifeboat” rule, but’s it’s within the realm of discussion within the community. The real art of compromise is giving up something you don’t really care that much about to get something you do really care about. If both sides get to do that, you have a bill you can pass. But where in their community do you hear discussion about what things could constitute that?
It only make sense when you look at it from their point of view. To the extent they don’t and can’t have prohibition, everything else is a compromise. They want to hold on to what meager crumbs they have from their point of view. Everything that makes guns harder to get is important! It’s a rather juvenile and unsophisticated view, but if there’s any evidence they don’t believe that, I’ve yet to see it.
Sebastian, I really like your final insights. They are so true! They act like jerks over silly and USELESS gun control laws and rules because that is all they have. The 300 million firearms that are already in the hands of citizens shows that gun control fanatics are complete losers.