David Codrea’s take on the overeducated moron.<\/p>\n
Gun Prohibitionist\u2019s Ultimatum Warrants Appropriate Gun Owner Response<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI would personally suggest the gun control groups develop a BATNA to help induce more good-faith negotiating,\u201d Tom H. Hastings, Director of the Peace and Nonviolence Studies, Conflict Resolution graduate program at Portland State University and Secretary for the Oregon Peace Studies Consortium writes in the\u00a0Lockport Union-Sun & Journal<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cBATNA?\u201d Hastings asks rhetorically (\u201cBest Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement\u201d). \u00a0\u201cIt simply means that, if you are trying to negotiate with anyone, it\u2019s important to not only think about \u2018what if these negotiations fail,\u2019 but to let the others know what you will be forced to do in that case.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n What does Hastings believe he\u2019s \u201cnegotiating,\u201d with whom, and what will he feel compelled to do if his demands aren\u2019t met?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cMy choice of BATNA would be, \u2018Look gun rights people, we want to negotiate common sense regulations with you,\u201d Hastings explains. \u201cHowever, literally every time we pass such measures at the local or state level, you work to overcome the will of the people by challenging those commonsense measures in court, with your lawsuits, and it\u2019s all based on the Second Amendment.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSo we have a best alternative to a negotiated agreement,\u201d Hastings imagines. \u201cOur BATNA is that we are going to stop all other gun control work and focus all our resources on a campaign to repeal the Second Amendment.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n No carrot, just the stick? Give us everything we demand or we\u2019re going to take even more? Hastings\u2019 use of the term \u201cnegotiating\u201d invokes nothing so much as Inigo Montoya\u2019s famous \u201cYou keep using that word<\/a>\u201d line from\u00a0The Princess Bride<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Here\u2019s a counter-BATNA, Mr. Hastings: No. Your move.<\/strong><\/p>\n I can\u2019t speak for all gun owners the way you presume to speak for all gun-grabbers, but for, say three percent of them (which would still be\u00a0millions of us<\/a>), the only response you\u2019ll get is \u201cWe will not disarm<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019re not going to surrender the most egalitarian power-sharing arrangement ever devised by men a lot smarter than you so that useful idiots can ensure the state has an unchallengeable monopoly of violence. Besides, we know from experience that\u00a0no concession will ever be enough<\/a>\u00a0(that\u2019s why they call them \u201ctotalitarians\u201d), and we know from nature that if you throw a scrap of flesh to a circling pack of jackals, rather than go away sated they will be emboldened to move in closer.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not like your idea is anything new or original. Google \u201cRepeal Second Amendment<\/a>,\u201d and you\u2019ll see no shortage of egghead dolts who, like you, believe they\u2019re smart but haven\u2019t thought things through about what demanding the same unconditional surrender from an armed populace will result in. The latest rumblings that come to mind are from California Governor\u00a0Gavin Newsom going full Orwell<\/a>\u00a0with his offensive and absurd 28th<\/sup>\u00a0Amendment.<\/strong><\/p>\n I see you were proposing the same subversive, reality-denying nonsense\u00a0back in 2022<\/a>, when you even showed you were aware of the potential of \u201cCivil War 2.0. With approximately 400 million guns floating around U.S. society and an armed MAGA-driven polarization met by an increasingly armed leftist radical wing, along with evermore virulent rhetoric and escalating numbers walking around open-carrying war weaponry in public\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n To give yourself some semblance of gravitas, you begin your piece by citing\u00a0Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens<\/a>, who like you, called for repeal of the Second Amendment. But here\u2019s the thing: Never meant to be an easy task, even if you could get the numbers needed to pass an amendment to the Constitution, repealing 2A would still not remove the right to arms. As\u00a0the\u00a0Heller<\/em>\u00a0majority noted<\/a>\u00a0when citing an earlier decision:<\/p>\n \u201cThe very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it \u2018shall not be infringed.\u2019 As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, \u2018[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n And it shall not be\u2014some of us will see to that.<\/p>\n So now it\u2019s back to you, Mr. Hastings. Your silly and offensive BATNA is rejected, we\u2019re not interested. Now do your worst. But do one other thing first: If they ever do pass your sick little fantasy, flesh out how you think those enforcing it (certainly not you or your fellow gun-grabbers by proxy!) are going to make it all happen. And since there hasn\u2019t been much original thought offered from your side so far, don\u2019t forget to\u00a0threaten using F-15s and nukes<\/a>!<\/strong><\/p>\n With \u201cprogressives,\u201d every day is Opposite Day. So it figures an aging, grinning academic wearing a stupid peace symbol earring is proposing unleashing the bloody horrors of civil war on the people of the Republic, and doing it in the name of non-violence and democracy.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" David Codrea’s take on the overeducated moron. Gun Prohibitionist\u2019s Ultimatum Warrants Appropriate Gun Owner Response \u201cI would personally suggest the gun control groups develop a BATNA to help induce more good-faith negotiating,\u201d Tom H. Hastings, Director of the Peace and Nonviolence Studies, Conflict Resolution graduate program at Portland State University and Secretary for the Oregon … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enemies-foreign-domestic","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103919,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103918\/revisions\/103919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}