you'll wish you HAD come to the negotiating table while there was still time.
But that's your choice... just remember it when you're out of power and at the mercy of your Opposition for the crafting and enforcement of law.
Myopic, arrogant, unimaginative dullards.
Mentioning "negotiating table" and being "at the mercy of your Opposition" and in the same breath calling the people on the other side of the negotiating table "Myopic, arrogant, unimaginative dullards."
Gee, I wonder how those negotiations will go...
They will go far better
now than they will the next time you lose political power.
In ancient times - Roman times - a general of the Legions would oftentimes accept the surrender of a city before a siege truly got underway.
However, once "The ram has touched the wall", the time for negotiation was over.
At the moment, the siege is only beginning; plenty of time to negotiate terms that preserve the best of the past, yielding 70 or 80 percent of what you want.
Let it go until you lose political power, however, and it will be too late; the ram will have touched the walls.
...OK. So let's play this out. Your side wins. We myopic, arrogant, unimaginative dullards won't give up our rights and the enlightened proletariat seizes control of the collective...
Yep. The Republicans lose the White House, the Senate, and the House, before the GOP has a chance to stack the Supreme Court with a surplus of Conservatives.
...What's the next step? How far are you going to go to disarm the myopic, arrogant, unimaginative dullards?
If serious work is undertaken while you still hold political power...
The next step is the passage of Federal law which establishes nationwide standards for firearms ownership, licensing, registration, vetting, transaction approvals, etc.
Should such Federal law end-up passing the Constitutional "sniff test" at the SCOTUS level - and it will - then such reformed nationwide Gun Control is in force.
You will be obliged to undergo nationally-standardized vetting, licensure, registration, transaction approval, training, etc., like every other firearms-owning citizen in the US.
You will keep your guns - there will be no need to disarm you - that would run contrary to the US Constitution and would not meet with the approval of most Americans.
You will, however, be obliged to obey such Federal law, and, if you do not, you will be subject to normal Law Enforcement sanctions, as with any other illegal behavior.
That gets you 70 or 80% of what you want - preserving the best of the past, at the cost of new and enforced accountability.
That's if you come to your senses sometime soon, while you are still in a position of political power.
------------------
But, let another two or three massacres of schoolchildren occur, while the phukking NRA and its minions make excuses and continue to resist sane and equitable Control...
Then, when the Political Magnetic Poles flip again -
and they always do - then 'the ram will have touched the walls' - the Other Side will remember, and it will be too late...
At that point, you run a much higher risk of a complete ban...
That, or -
more likely - you run the risk of Reform that is far more limiting, and gives you only 10 or 20 or 30% of what you could have had, had you possessed better vision.
At that point, the same Law Enforcement mechanisms set to work, to enforce the Law of the Land, as they always have done, and as they always will do.
And, after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and great laughter on the part of your Opponents, you will, indeed, submit to the laws of the United States.
Guaranteed.
But it is the fate of unimaginative, short-sighted dullards, not to see the wisdom of bilateral resolution of such Major Issues, until an unfavorable unilateral one is imposed.
Damned shame, that... truly... but... what-the-Hell.... your choice.
