The subject of the post that was here has been handled honourably, and to my complete satisfaction.

Let us not speak of it any further.

Thank you.

LawDog

“We cannot negotiate with those who say, ‘What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is negotiable.'”

— John F. Kennedy, Address to the American People, 25 JUL 1961

Most people tend to substitute the word ‘compromise’ for the first ‘negotiate’ in that quote, and it does tend to fit the current circumstances.

Once again the anti-gun people are starting to trot out the tired and hackneyed meme of “compromise” in the “national gun conversation”.

One of the more highly linked of my posts is the one about the “Gun Rights Cake” analogy, which I will now re-post and expand a bit:

I hear a lot about “compromise” from the gun-control camp … except, it’s not compromise.

Allow me to illustrate:

Let’s say I have this cake. It is a very nice cake, with “GUN RIGHTS” written across the top in lovely floral icing. Along you come and say, “Give me that cake.”

I say, “No, it’s my cake.”

You say, “Let’s compromise. Give me half.” I respond by asking what I get out of this compromise, and you reply that I get to keep half of my cake.

Okay, we compromise. Let us call this compromise The National Firearms Act of 1934.

This leaves me with half of my cake and there I am, enjoying my cake when you walk back up and say, “Give me that cake.”

I say — again: “No, it’s my cake.”

You say, “Let’s compromise.” What do I get out of this compromise? Why, I get to keep half of what’s left of the cake I already own.

So, we compromise — let us call this one the Gun Control Act of 1968 — and this time I’m left holding what is now just a quarter of my cake.

And I’m sitting in the corner with my quarter piece of cake, and here you come again. You want my cake. Again.

This time you take several bites — we’ll call this compromise the Clinton Executive Orders — and I’m left with about a tenth of what has always been MY DAMN CAKE and you’ve got nine-tenths of it. 

 Let me restate that: I started out with MY CAKE and you have already ‘compromised’ me out of ninety percent of MY CAKE …

… and here you come again. Compromise! … Lautenberg Act (nibble, nibble). Compromise! … The HUD/Smith and Wesson agreement (nibble, nibble). Compromise! … The Brady Law (NOM NOM NOM). Compromise! … The School Safety and Law Enforcement Improvement Act (sweet tap-dancing Freyja, my finger!)

After every one of these “compromises” — in which I lose rights and you lose NOTHING — I’m left holding crumbs of what was once a large and satisfying cake, and you’re standing there with most of MY CAKE, making anime eyes and whining about being “reasonable”, and wondering “why we won’t compromise” as you try for the rest of my cake.

In 1933 I — or any other American — could buy a fully-automatic Thompson sub-machine gun, a 20mm anti-tank gun, or shorten the barrel of any gun I owned to any length I thought fit, silence any gun I owned, and a host of other things.

Come your “compromise” in 1934, and suddenly I can’t buy a sub-machine gun, a silencer, or a Short-Barreled Firearm without .Gov permission and paying a hefty tax. What the hell did y’all lose in this “compromise”?

In 1967 I, or any other American, could buy or sell firearms anywhere we felt like it, in any State we felt like, with no restrictions. We “compromised” in 1968, and suddenly I’ve got to have a Federal Firearms License to have a business involving firearms, and there’s whole bunch of rules limiting what, where and how I buy or sell guns.

In 1968, “sporting purpose” — a term found NOT ANY DAMNED WHERE IN THE CONSTITUTION, TO SAY NOTHING OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT — suddenly became a legal reason to prevent the importation of guns that had been freely imported in 1967.

Tell me, do — exactly what the hell did you lose in this 1968 “compromise”?

The Lautenberg Act was a “compromise” which suddenly deprived Americans of a Constitutional Right for being accused or convicted of a misdemeanor — a bloody MISDEMEANOR! What did your side lose in this “compromise”?

I could go on and on, but the plain and simple truth of the matter is that a genuine “compromise” means that both sides give up something. My side of the discussion has been giving, giving, and giving yet more — and your side has been taking, taking, and now wants to take more.

For you, “compromise” means you’ll take half of my cake now, and the other half of my cake next time. Always has been, always will be.

I’ve got news for you: That is not “compromise”.

I’m done with being reasonable, and I’m done with “compromise”. Nothing about gun control in this country has ever been “reasonable” nor a genuine “compromise”, and I have flat had enough.

LawDog

I’ve known Larry Correia for ages — although only on the Internet so far.

He is an articulate and intelligent man, as amply evidenced by his appearance on the Mike Huckabee show:

The referenced blog post can be found here.

I am proud to say that I know Larry Correia.

Well done, sir. Jolly well done.

LawDog

From a Gentle Reader:

“Mr. Dog, I have a question for you. Not being a smartass, I’m truly looking for a more rational response to the Sandy Hook shooting than “arm the teachers”, “take away all the AK-47s” or “make it harder to buy and register guns”. If I understood the reports correctly, none of those would have helped much. A teacher having a gun and taking a basic firearm safety and usage course doesn’t make them a good shot. Frankly, if someone put a gun in my hands my students would be in more danger than whomever I was trying to shoot at, and I’m not alone. (I can aim and shoot a crossbow or a longbow, but a gun? I’m hopeless.) Those weapons were legally owned, registered, and used by Lanza’s mother. That her son would steal them, murder her and then to go the elementary school was perhaps predictable, but only in hindsight.

And yet these sorts of atrocities are happening more and more. What is currently being proposed seems like over reaction on both the anti and pro gun sides, but what would you suggest?

Kestrel”

The simple and honest answer? These sorts of atrocities are not happening more and more.

The Curry School of Education has a paper up called “School Violence Myths”, in which Myth #4 states that school homicides have been trending downwards from a high of 42 in the mid-90s to two in the most current statistics.

Even MSNBC — no friend to the Second Amendment — points out that schools assaults have dropped “by nearly half in the past decade”.

Reason.com has an article up titled: “Five Facts About Guns, Schools, And Violence“, with embedded links and video.

Reason.com also has an article up which directly addresses your concern, titled: “Are Mass Shootings Becoming More Common In The United States?” with a very good graph.

Mass shootings are not on the rise, and haven’t been for ages. What has changed, however, is the sheer amount of coverage these atrocities are garnering (deliberately, in some cases) leading to the incorrect perception that they are happening more and more.

Which is a whole other post.

Hope that helps,

LawDog

… all of those liberal commentators — both here and in meat-space — who have sneeringly and/or patronizingly informed me in the past that President Obama isn’t anti-gun:

Pack your bums with salt and go wee up a rope.

Bloody weasels.

LawDog