The Morning Briefing: Will Squish Republicans Cave to Democrats on Guns?

Thanks to Oval Office Occupier Joe Biden’s speech last Thursday, America’s argument raged on all through the weekend. Let us be clear about one thing: there is no gun “debate” in this country, it’s a knock-down, drag-out fight.

We’ve had a lot of content written these past few days covering the issue. I wrote a column on Friday that included something that comes up in conversations a lot lately:

As I often tell people, in over half a century of shooting, my guns have never shot anybody.

Why should my Second Amendment rights be run roughshod over?

No one has ever been able to make that case to me.

That may seem a little simplistic but I would like someone to take a crack at answering it.

The coastal Democrats are trying to move quickly on new gun legislation, coming up with outlandish ideas like the one Matt wrote about over the weekend:

In response to a recent string of mass shootings, one House Democrat is drafting a bill designed to severely restrict access to assault weapons.

Rep. Donald Beyer (D-Va.), who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, is looking to put a 1,000% excise tax on AR-15-type rifles as a means of making them less affordable to the public.

“What it’s intended to do is provide another creative pathway to actually make some sensible gun control happen,” Beyer told Business Insider. “We think that a 1,000% fee on assault weapons is just the kind of restrictive measure that creates enough fiscal impact to qualify for reconciliation.”

Democrats have never encountered a situation that they couldn’t tax to death.

The big worry for pro-Second Amendment types is whether any Republicans might be moved by media pressure to “compromise” on what the Democrats like to laughingly call “common sense” legislation. There were rumors floating around last week that some Republicans were ready to yield on “red flag laws,” which Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) railed against, calling them “unconstitutional.

In his latest column over at Townhall, Schlichter offers up a variety of reasons that the GOP shouldn’t compromise on guns. My big reason has always been this:

the Democrats are never satisfied once Republicans yield to them.

They’ll just want more. Just look at what they’ve done with abortion.

They reject any limitations whatsoever.

Republicans who want to buddy up to the Dems on guns in order to get a pat on the head from The New York Times do so at their own peril, which New York’s Chris Jacobs found out the hard way.

There are no simple paths to an agreement between the left and the right on this issue and Republicans should be wary of any that seem to be.

The Democrats’ end game is to take all of our guns away.

They’ll do it in baby steps and Republicans who are afflicted by Swamp disease will fall for them.

And then one day it will be too late.

The Morning Briefing: Will Squish Republicans Cave to Democrats on Guns?