jaholder:
What this means is that every time there is compromise, we lose more of our RKBA.
Nope. You misunderstand
compromise, perhaps because GOA, JPFO, and similar "no-compromise" organizations don't have the foggiest notion of its meaning either. Or perhaps those organizations intentionally confuse "compromise" with "concession" in conscious attempts to mislead people. I'm charitable enough to credit them with more ignorance than malice, although their behaviors signal considerable malice too.
"Compromise" doesn't mean "concession" and it's not an absolute like "pregnant" or "dead." A woman can't be a little bit pregnant and people aren't just a wee bit dead. Those are absolutes. There are several meanings of the word "concession" but the most relevant meaning here involves giving up something one already has. It's an absolute too: first you have it, then you don't, because you've
conceded it.
Compromise doesn't work that way, even if GOA says it does and even if all of its members agree.
Since you raised the issue, a good illustration of the difference between "compromise" and "concession" is The NICS Improvement Act of 2007. NICS and the laws on which it based already existed. That act does not
create NICS or those laws. They already
were. The Act does contain
compromises. When GOA decided to call it "The Veterans Disarmament Act," it bedazzled many people into believing that the Act was a
concession, not a
compromise, which of course is why GOA did it. (I hope it's not entirely futile to ask that you set aside the temptation to pick the Act apart now. Do that and you lose the point.)
A
compromise gets each party
some of what it wants in return for
some of what it doesn't want. In a good compromise both parties leave with something of value that they didn't have before, neither party sacrificed anything of real value that it shouldn't have lost, and the deal was good enough to encourage them both to return for more
compromises in the future.
Pretend for a moment that not everyone in this country is out to get gun owners and that most people are like us except that they don't own or understand guns. Assume for just this moment that they are not vicious, evil, corrupt, diabolical "sheeple" (half man, half animal) but only ordinary people with ordinary wants and fears. You can continue to scare the hell out of them by demanding what they seem to fear most: crazy people running around with machine guns murdering them and their kids. Or you can work carefully to reassure them that you're an ordinary person too, with similar concerns but with more familiarity with this world they don't understand. Me, I don't want a lunatic like Cho to massacre people either. I don't think that lunatics or criminals depend on getting guns legally and I don't see any reason to believe that they go to gun stores to buy machine guns. So for a lot of reasons I'm more than willing to negotiate compromises that allay people's fears with what's of little real value while getting increased expansion of what you call our "RKBA." As they learn to trust me, rather than to fear me, step by step and compromise by compromise I can expand my rights while retaining those I already have. As they and I move along that path, moreover, they come to recognize that I'm not crazy or a liar or an exaggerator, so when the lunatic fringe on the other side--greedy Sarah Brady, pitiful Carolyn McCarthy, crafty Chuck Schumer, and power mad Michael Bloomberg--lies to them they're likely to ask for my response and perhaps believe me over them. Rest assured that I
will win that way. Perhaps if you think about it you might understand why I say so with such absolute certainty.
Siglite can't see it but the way he got his Concealed Weapons Permit is a classic example of good compromise that got him
more, not
less, of his ability to keep and bear arms. West Virginia law requires a training course for the CWP, Siglite says he satisfied that requirement with military training, but the Sheriff disagreed and so Siglite took the NRA-certified course. He got his CWP and now, presumably, carries a concealed weapon for self defense.
Siglite compromised. As I pointed out in a previous message, it's possible to argue that Siglite hates the NRA so much that he betrayed his principles by compromising them and taking that course. With your thinking Siglite would have lost more of his gun rights because he
compromised. But he didn't. He gained more of them. And Siglite didn't
concede anything he had. Siglite did not have the CWP and, as he said, he risked incarceration if he carried a concealed weapon without that permit. What he gave away in that compromise was a few hours of his time, a few dollars of his money, and a principle that didn't matter to him as much as the CWP. In another sense he didn't give away as much as he got because he now has yet another reason to hate the NRA and talk about it. Siglite won big. The Sheriff and the state of West Virginia got whatever it was they valued in that transaction: compliance with the Sheriff's demand and the state's law, I suppose. Siglite came out way ahead on that deal, I think, and perhaps he, the Sheriff, and the state might even be willing to enter into future transactions together. None of the parties
conceded anything: none of them gave away what they already had. Siglite for sure didn't
concede a thing.
Most of the rest you argue just isn't substantial or even reasonable, perhaps especially the strange argument that "loss of RKBA means they [the NRA] can get more donors to cough up more money." Follow that reasoning and where it goes is that the NRA would make the maximum amount of money if there were no right to keep and bear arms in this country. Then the NRA would be trying to have
no gun owners in the country so it could get gun owners to cough up more money, except there would be no gun owners to cough up the money. Makes no sense at the end, makes no sense at the beginning.
