re: #4 Romantic Heretic

That comment is a grammatically correct and erudite example of the Manichaean worldview. There is only good and only evil, black and white, no nuance ever. Nuance is the enemy trying to infiltrate and corrupt purity.

It’s pretty sad shit, really.

I’d say its more a comment by someone who thinks he’d like nuance, but feels forced into rigidity by implacable foes. He’s not as right about that as he seems, though his concerns to point to an important truth for gun owners.

That truth is that there are those on the left who simply hate guns and view any compromise as temporary and only a prelude to the next round of restrictions. Normally, I’d be accused of invoking the Magical Balance Fairy for saying this, so to guard against that I offer the recent bills in California (which would have banned all semi-auto rifles that can accept a detachable magazine) and New Jersey (which would have banned .50 cal rifles). Both bills were vetoed by governors who are not in the NRA’s corner, but nevertheless concluded the bills would not make their states safer. Both bills reflected little more than animus towards guns and a desire to show that the bill’s originators were ‘doing something’ in the wake of Sandy Hook.

It is that kind of fundamental opposition to guns ranged against those who are fundamentally unwilling to accept any restriction on guns that makes the sorts of compromises that Rachel Maddow floated on the air and RWC floated here impossible. Durable compromise cannot be reached while the debate is driven by extremists who will ultimately accept nothing short of total victory.