Compromise

There's this writer, Margaret Carlson, who wrote an article for Bloomberg View.  It's a standard moonbat article entitled Now it's the NRA's turn to Understand Us.  Carlson is all butt-hurt that she thinks we don't understand her.  What Carlson doesn't understand is that compromise means a give-and-take and what we've been hearing from the gun banners is take, take, take.

So, in my continuing attempt to educate the less fortunate, I wrote Ms. Carlson a nice email, which I've included in its entirety.

Ms. Carlson.
I just read your article on Bloomberg View, Now It's the NRA's Turn to Understand Us.  It is a well written piece and contain much of the frustration that we've seen in the current debate.  However, some of your talking points are highly suspect.  For example you say:
Has the gulf between the NRA and the general public ever been wider? There was a day when the NRA supported background checks. Now it has essentially killed a modest effort to close a loophole that would keep criminals and the mentally ill from buying weapons at gun shows and on the Internet.

Many of us still support background checks, but we don't think that 90% figure is accurate.  There are other studies that show that 94% of Americans want the laws left alone.  The 90% figure is higly suspect and it's quoted regularly as a talking point.  When we gun owners see that 90% figure, we cringe, because we simply don't believe it is accurate.

They and their rural-hunting-sporting-suspicious culture must always be respected. Don’t they have a corresponding obligation to understand my side, much less the specifics of the Manchin-Toomey bill? 

Yeah, you know us rednecks, we're awfully suspicious of you guys.  Especially when we know that online sales of guns are already subject to bacikground check.  Did you know that?  Online sales are already regulated heavily.  Yet, you tolks keep talking about regulating online sales.  Perhaps you should become familiar with current law before you accuse us of being ignorant about Manchin-Toomey.

If you want a reasonable conversation, fine.  I'm always ready to be reasonable.  I'm also open to compromise, when we define compromise as each side giving up something.  My question becomes, what is your side willing to give up?  Something that you have already that you're willing to forgo, something that you have now that you're willing to put on the table?  What is that thing?

You see, that's the problem with compromise when we start talking about gun rights.  You're asking us to give up something, but you have nothing to offer in return.  That's not compromise.  That's tyranny.  

All this is academic, simply because we're mobilizing faster than you can imagine.  We're already inside your decision loop.  Gun rights are ascendant in the United States.  Even if you get Manchin-Toomey through the Senate, it'll never pass the House, it will never become law.  It's done, it's over, it's finished.  You're trying to resuscitate a dead horse.

However, just for the intellectual exercise, I'd really like to hear what you're willing to give up in a reasonable conversation.  I, for one, would like to see a repeal of the 1934 NFA.  Those guns are never used in crimes.  If you're willing to work towards repeal of that law, we might be willing to compromise on background checks.  Until then, you don't have anything to offer, so there can be no compromise.

In full disclosure, I"m a blogger with about 15,000 discrete page views every month, and I'll be highlighting your piece in tomorrow's blog posting.  Feel free to stop by and watch the hilarity.

I doubt I'll hear from Ms. Carlson, but the point is made.  There is no compromise with my rights, and there is no compromise on other matters until the other side is ready to give away something as dear to them as what they suggest taking from me.

The ball is in Ms. Carlson's court.  We'll see if she wants to have a reasonable conversation, or if she's simply blowing smoke up our asses.  She's got both my email address and this blog's URL.  We'll see, but I'm not holding my breath.