NRA tactic is a symptom

I have seen recent letters saying the National Rifle Association should support regulating assault rifles and large capacity magazines, and saying they are unreasonable for not doing that. They are not unreasonable.

The NRA and other conservative single-issue groups have learned from the tactics of liberal single-interest groups that compromising on your issue does not gain you anything. If the NRA were to agree to regulate (ban) assault rifles, the anti-gun groups would immediately shift all their funding and efforts toward the next step in banning all guns. As long as they are arguing about assault rifles they are not arguing about banning semi-automatic pistols, semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, all pistols, all rifles, etc.

This is part of a larger problem where politics in general is degenerating to tribalism where there are no winners or losers, only survivors. This will continue to happen unless people rediscover the virtue of a settled compromise that both sides agree to support as a matter of personal integrity. The ultimate alternative is Syria or Afghanistan, where warring tribes battle in endless war among the shattered wreckage of what could be prosperous countries.

William Rust

Wallace, Idaho