The broken record we’re playing is getting old and the country we all value is disappearing to the point in which our 2 major parties are both sloganeering that we must “take our country back” from the other.

Why has this point been missed by so many? That both of our major parties feel disempowered? That our people feel disempowered? That life in the U.S. appears to be stuck like a hamster on a wheel, going and going and never getting anywhere?

And yet, because of more violence, more mass shooting, more in-your-face brandishing of guns, more open carry laws, more repeals of existing gun control, we are left with the paradox of blacks getting shot for picking up BB guns in Target and white militias forcing the FBI to stand down. Still, not a single week has gone by in three years without a mass shooting.

'Safety trumps freedom when the people feel unsafe.' Share on X

But the more dystopian this seems, the less actually getting done, the more decent, bipartisan legislation languishes in committee, the more 90% public approval ratings for changing the status quo, the less ground we have to stand on. The less partisanship we will tolerate. And in the end, one thing will win:

Dead children will beat a yahoo with an assault rifle. Pictures of dead children will win over pictures of arrogant a-holes.

1) Safety trumps freedom when the people feel unsafe. 

And we are feeling less safe than ever.

This should be enough for the GOP to change its tune on guns, but here are two other reasons.

2) Negotiation means they get something

I shouldn’t have to spell this out, but 7 years of the Congressional prevent defense produced a few turnovers in the 2nd quarter, but it didn’t win Republicans the White House. And despite current polls, when the real election cycle gets going, there will need to be a platform that can deliver improvements, not merely overturning the things they don’t like. Actually coming to the table now, when doing so would be seen as a bipartisan move, would mean that the legislation that will be passed is less objectionable to the GOP.

3) Steal the win

Sometimes the best political option is to steal the win from opponents. This is not merely neutralizing an advantage, it is stealing the advantage. Clinton famously did it on welfare reform in the 1990s. A better example might be conservatives in Taiwan stealing the Healthcare reform position: they produced their own single-payer system so that the liberals couldn’t. This helped them maintain power and win a generation of new voters while producing an appealing, conservative product. By giving a little on principle, they won lasting power and determine the conditions of the law.

This is all good politics. If the GOP is smart, they’d move quickly while public sentiment continues to shift away from them. But there really is one other reason they should act now.

Liberals haven’t been coming for anyone’s guns. But if we do nothing, I guarantee they will. 

There’s only so much waiting a populace will take and Democrats have spent three decades working the middle ground with little across-the-aisle cooperation. At some point the battle will shift from the middle and the rest of the left side of the field will come into play; then conservatives stand to lose much more ground than can be otherwise gained now.