Neville McConnell

If you are a student of 20th Century history, you know that the British led by then-Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain engaged in a policy of appeasement when confronted by Hitler’s demands for the Sudetenland which was part of then Czechoslovakia. Emboldened by this, Hitler later invaded Poland which marked the start of the Second World War.

I think of the 14 Republican senators led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who voted to invoke cloture on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act yesterday. It is a policy of appeasement. I presume that McConnell hopes that by appeasing the Democrats on gun control that it will not be an issue of great importance in the November elections. Is agreeing to a “bipartisan” bill on gun control now any different than Chamberlain’s “Peace for our Time”? Frankly, I don’t think so. If you read any of the comments from the gun control industry issued last night, you can see they are already planning for the next move.

What Sen. McConnell does not seem to realize is that appeasement will never regain the Senate for the Republicans. Those who want gun control will never vote for Republicans and those for whom gun control is anathema may just sit out the election.

Excuse my poor Adobe Photoshop skills but this is how I see it along with an rewriting of Chamberlain’s speech he was waving in his hand after returning from Munich.

Neville McConnell

And the speech.

We, the Democrats, and the Republicans, have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of gun control is of the first importance for our two parties and for the United States.
We regard the agreement signed last night and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act as symbolic of the desire of our two parties to ignore the Constitution. We are resolved that the method of capitulation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other commonsense questions of gun control by our two parties, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to the end of the Second Amendment.

Chamberlain’s actual speech is here.