I think there’s a certain degree of middle ground possible on most issues. I think compromise–actual compromise–is a good thing. If everyone gets some of what they want, but not all of it, then we can probably get through most things together.
At least in theory.
In reality, compromise never works like that, especially in politics. That’s especially true when it comes to gun control and gun rights.
Recently, I came across an article talking about how there doesn’t seem to be any hope of compromise in Indiana, and I have to take exception to a few things that were said.
Jody Madeira, a law professor at Indiana University, explained why it is so difficult for Indiana to pass gun control laws.
“Indiana legislators, although they are so reasonable in other ways, are just so extreme with gun rights that there is no compromise,” Madeira said.
“Although Indiana talks a good game about protecting firearm rights and only making sure that ‘rights are violated’ when it’s the last possible resort, to protect mental health or to protect the most vulnerable, they’re still not willing to compromise anyone’s access to firearms.
Madeira gave her reasoning as to the motive behind Indiana gun laws being so one sided.
“(Indiana legislators) have seen what happens when parents are held liable in other states for neglectfully allowing a minor to access a firearm or neglecting to safeguard it in the presence of an adult who they know is a danger to themselves or others,” Madeira said. “They just don’t want people to take away guns, period.”
Pierre Atlas, director of the master’s of public affairs program at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Indianapolis, attributes the lack of compromise to an increase in extreme political stances.
“The bottom line is, increasingly over the years, the debate over gun rights vs. gun regulations has become increasingly partisan,” Atlas said. “The Republican Party and the National Rifle Association and the firearms manufacturers have increasingly come to be on one side of the debate.
“And a lot of it is because of the linkage between partisan politics, the partisan divide, and the debate over guns,” he said. “This isn’t the way it used to be, even in Indiana, but that’s definitely the way it is today.”
Here’s the problem with these takes: They ignore the way “compromise” has always worked in the gun debate.
See, for years, the idea of compromise was common. Gun rights supporters wanted to be reasonable, but anti-gunners had no such desire. They made big asks and then “compromised” to take only part of what they wanted. The gun rights side got screwed because all we got out of the deal was fewer gun rights, just not quite as few as the other side would prefer.
That’s not much of a compromise.
I mean, you’re telling us the only way to be reasonable is to either give up everything or give up a little less, even though we don’t actually have to give up anything, and then you’re shocked when we stop?
Time and time again, anti-gun lawmakers and activists have demanded we move. They’ve never given up a thing except to take a little less than they wanted, but even that isn’t permanent. They come back the next year and try to take the rest. There’s no rational give and take.
Sooner or later, they were always going to push too far, and our side was just going to say, “Enough.”
There’s no compromise now because there was never any compromise then. They just pretended there was as we made a slow march toward complete disarmament.
Now, though, we’re freaking down.
My friend LawDog summed this up perfectly when he wrote the cake analogy. His original site is down now, but basically, every time the anti-gunners came up and demanded our cake (which was our gun rights), they agreed to take half and call it compromise. First, it was the National Firearms Act. Then it was the Gun Control Act in 1964. Then it was the 1986 machine gun ban. Then the 1996 Assault Weapon Ban.
With each piece of the cake given over in the name of compromise, our cake got smaller and smaller, but they kept coming up and demanding
Then, one day, we said enough. We want our cake back, and we’re done playing nice about it.
So yeah, there’s no compromise, but the anti-gunners have only themselves to blame for it.
Read the full article here
