That should not be ignored, certainly, but Bikenut's message--to me--speaks to an evil far worse that we need to warily keep in our sights. That being gun owners ourselves, especially the organizations we belong to and lobby for us, going along with going backward on gun rights and criminalizing currently legal gun rights.
There is a saying: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." I would add to that, "Being around power also corrupts." When you are lobbying and working with legislators, it tends to corrupt you. It's often not intentional by the lobbyists, and often it's not noticeable by them. Much like hypoxia, you're starting to get stupid and doing the wrong things but you don't notice it and you think you're doing fine, but that's only because the lack of oxygen to your brain is also impairing your awareness of yourself. When you're working with legislators, the urgency to get something done so you don't feel like you wasted part of your life couples with the heady feeling that you are a "player" in the power game. When others in the group start talking about "look let's consider criminalizing a little bit of this minority exercised right of open carry in order to get this bill we've been bleeding and sweating over to get passed", it's hard not to resist because you are unintentionally drunk (hypoxic) with the idea of getting SOMETHING accomplished so you don't have to go home and face your own self-criticism that you had your time wasted and you really weren't such a big "player".
We have to watch our gun lobbyists closely and yank some oxygen on their faces when necessary, especially when it comes to hypoxically going along with criminalizing currently legal gun rights. Yanking oxygen on their face comes in many forms, some examples being the posts here criticizing the criminalizations that were going to be in the recently failed SB 59. We have to put the oxygen mask on their face, and after they come back to full awareness, we have to tell them it's ok if they end up wasting their time and it's ok to not be a "player", as long as they are not going along with criminalizing gun rights away, one bill at a time.
Fortunately, our legislators and lobbyists live in the real world, where an all or nothing approach always yields '
none'. They've learned that they cannot ever satisfy the extremists that live out on the fringe of reality. Compromise is an everyday occurrence, in everyone's life; no exceptions. You compromise on the pay you receive, the hours you work, the prices you pay, the house you live in, which side of the bed you sleep on- the list goes on and on, ad infinitum. How do you go through a day without compromise? I know for a fact, you don't.
To believe that progress can be made without compromise is to deny reality. Possibly even could classify as a mental illness (narcissistic personality, to full blown psychopathy).
I OC everywhere, but I don't consider it with the same fervor that usually is reserved for religion. I support
human rights, particularly the basic
human right of survival. If I need to give up OC so a greater number of individuals can regain that basic human right, I'm OK with that.
That being said, I would push for dropping the age to obtain a CPL to 18 to replace OC, so that people who have reached that age can have that same basic human right.
Would I like to stop making compromises? Sure, but I don't think my company is going to give me a bigger paycheck, better office, etc, just because I say it must be so. So, we compromise.
Such is reality; such is life. If you believe you can go through life without compromise, be prepared for a life chock full of disappointment.