The Gun Rights Cake

Yes, that's my work. Really.

My work, by way of NightCafe.

Let's say I have this cake. It is a very nice cake, with "GUN RIGHTS" written across the top in lovely floral icing. Along you come and say, "Give me that cake."

I say, "No, it's my cake."

You say, "Let's compromise. Give me half." I respond by asking what I get out of this compromise, and you reply that I get to keep half of my cake.

Okay, we compromise. Let us call this compromise The National Firearms Act of 1934.

There I am with my half of the cake, and you walk back up and say, "Give me that cake."

I say, "No, it's my cake."

You say, "Let's compromise." What do I get out of this compromise? Why, I get to keep half of what's left of the cake I already own.

So, we have your compromise -- let us call this one the Gun Control Act of 1968 -- and I'm left holding what is now just a quarter of my cake.

And I'm sitting in the corner with my quarter piece of cake, and here you come again. You want my cake. Again.

This time you take several bites -- we'll call this compromise the Clinton Executive Orders -- and I'm left with about a tenth of what has always been MY CAKE and you've got nine-tenths of it.

Then we compromised with the Lautenberg Act (nibble, nibble), the HUD/Smith and Wesson agreement (nibble, nibble), the Brady Law (NOM NOM NOM), the School Safety and Law Enforcement Improvement Act (sweet tap-dancing Freyja, my finger!)

I'm left holding crumbs of what was once a large and satisfying cake, and you're standing there with most of MY CAKE, making anime eyes and whining about being "reasonable", and wondering "why we won't compromise".

I'm done with being reasonable, and I'm done with compromise. Nothing about gun control in this country has ever been "reasonable" nor a genuine "compromise".

I initially wrote that piece back on the my old blog in … 2010, I think. The Brady Bunch had been making noises about “reasonable compromises”, and I was fairly well-known in the gun blogosphere at the time, so they tagged me. Hoo boy, that might not have been their best idea.

Of all the stuff I’ve written as LawDog, the Gun Rights Cake Analogy is one of the top five that I’m most proud of. It was off-the-cuff — as most of my best stuff was — articulate, and convincing. Enough so, that the usual argument brought up against it is something along the lines of, “Cakes don’t kill children!”

Sigh. It’s a metaphor. When your best response to a metaphor is to invoke emotion and wave tragedy … you don’t have a response. And you’ve already lost.

The Gun Rights Cake Analogy is also the single-most plagiarized thing I’ve ever written. Holy gods has that thing gotten around, and claimed by every-single-body out there. Although — to be perfectly honest — the thing that annoys me the most about the plagiarizers are the ones that have to add stuff to it. I wrote it a certain way — leave it alone.

There are two authorized illustrated versions of the Gun Rights Cake Analogy. The first was done by the Facebook group “Hypocrisy and Stupidity of Gun Control Advocates”:

Art by DK@facebook.com/HaSoGCA. Note the attribution at the bottom.

This one gets around a bit — usually with the attribution text cut off.

The second was done for me as gift by Jack Wylder.

By Jack Wylder. Note the attribution at the top.

We used to sell the second one — I’ve still got a stack of them around here somewhere — but they didn’t sell as well as I had hoped, so we kind of trailed off on those sales.

Anyhoo. The Gun Rights Cake Analogy you’ve seen floating around the last 15 years, quoted by Gun Owners of America and various public figures? Yeah, it’s mine.

Ian Mc Murtrie (LawDog)

EDIT: Welcome, Bearing Arms readers! If you’d like a copy of the Jack Wylder poster up above, I am the CEO of Raconteur Press, and we’ve set up a link where you can order one.

Even if you don’t want a copy of that poster, we’re publishing anthologies, novels, and Boy’s Adventure books. Go by the link and check us out! Tell your friends!

Ian