There’s something scary about armed citizens who will not negotiate.  Even armies occasionally meet in the middle of a battlefield to consider their losses and make treaties.  This has never been the NRA’s way. It has always been “Taking my gun from my cold dead hands,” as Charlton Heston famously declared.

Rhetorically struggling, the NRA continues to hold its ground in Washington.  Even the once-favored universal background check  is losing currency in Congress.  How is this possible, when NRA’s  public defense of Second Amendment rights has declined to an adolescent protest that we can’t enforce the gun control laws we want to pass?

Is this really a legitimate argument against passing a law: that crimes will still be committed and enforcement will be problematic?  Isn’t this an argument against laws enforcing seat belt use, or proscribing pornography or marijuana? You can’t control it, so why bother making laws against it?  It’s almost like wishing the offenders of the law “good luck,” because we don’t like the law either.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. The NRA is losing the public battle against reasonable gun control legislation, so its Congressional attack dogs, like Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Oklahoma Senator Darrel Imhof labor over the enforcement issue. Criminals will continue to find guns. Straw purchases will continue.  God-fearing gun owners will face confiscation.  What proposed law would take guns from legitimate gun owners? It is not these laws, but any laws that the NRA resists.

This is why the NRA can not earn my respect. Every gun control law comes down to whether you can defend your home against lawlessness or government intrusion. Every gun control law trespasses on the Second Amendment.  Every law compromises your freedom.  In the realm of gun control, the NRA is no different than anarchists.

The NRA’s rhetorical stand against gun control legislation has lost its potency. Public polling continues to favor universal background checks and limits on gun magazines.  The proscription of certain assault weapons lag a little behind in the polling. But gun control advocates would still bring it all to a vote. Let’s see who will go on record against these measures.

Sunday night Sixty Minutes brought seven victimized families from Newtown, CT back into the public spotlight. They showed them passing out literature prior to the Connecticut’s passing of the country’s strictest gun control law. They documented the grim resolve of each family to make this cause a life commitment.  The victimized mothers and fathers argued persuasively that a smaller gun magazine would have saved some children’s lives on December 14, 2012.  None of them asserted radical positions on gun control. Some even defended the legality of some assault weapons.

That is the difference between the NRA and its opponents. The NRA does not know the meaning of “concession” or “compromise.”  It fights behind a battle front that never moves or regroups.

Eventually this rhetorical strategy will stumble, because the United States is not a “take-no-prisoners” society.  Battle fronts in Congress move every month on matters like immigration and education.  Gun control will be no different. The whimper and the bluster will eventually give way to reason, because we will not forget Rep. Gabby Giffords, Aurora or Newtown.  The rhetorical battle is already won, and the political battle is ripe for negotiation.