By Tom H. Hastings
Guns.
Does any country on Earth have a Second Amen-dent, a constitutional protection for those who want to own a gun?
Just US.
And so even though we slaughter scores of innocent civilians, including so many children that it is the number one cause of death for certain age groups of minors in the US (according to the New England Journal of Medicine), the gun rights groups use that Second Amendment to make it perpetually allowable.
Side note: how ironic to think the US electorate might care about thousands of children blown up in Gaza when we clearly have so little regard for our own children’s lives compared to gun rights.
I would personally suggest the gun control groups develop a BATNA to help induce more good-faith negotiating.
BATNA? Yes. It’s the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. It’s a term coined by William Ury and others at the Harvard Negotiation Project back in the late 1970s and first published in their little 1981 popular book, Getting to Yes. It simply means that, if you are trying to negotiate with anyone, it’s important to not only think about “what if these negotiations fail,” but to let the others know what you will be forced to do in that case.
If you are transparent about your BATNA, the other side has a couple of ways forward. Either that motivates them to keep talking because they didn’t understand how strong your BATNA is, or it tends to make them less inclined to negotiate because they are prepared for the most robust action you can imagine taking.
If the latter is the case, you may be headed for Getting to No.
If your announced BATNA is an unpleasant shock to them, however, they will likely want to negotiate in good faith.
So, back to gun control vs gun rights. My choice of BATNA would be, “Look gun rights people, we want to negotiate common sense regulations with you. However, literally every time we pass such measures at the local or state level, you work to overcome the will of the people by challenging those commonsense measures in court, with your lawsuits, and it’s all based on the Second Amendment.
“No other country has anything like the Second Amendment and other countries that have dealt with this issue have passed commonsense restrictions, such as the assault weapon ban in Australia virtually immediately after a mass shooting there.
“So we have a best alternative to a negotiated agreement. Our BATNA is that we are going to stop all other gun control work and focus all our resources on a campaign to repeal the Second Amendment. We have a template for that; the amendment outlawing alcoholic beverages was passed and a decade later that Amendment was repealed. We are either going to get your commitment to allow our democratically produced local and state laws honored or we will end our negotiations and begin a massive campaign to overturn the Second Amendment.
“We have commitments for this focus from literally hundreds of nongovernmental organizations plus many state and local governmental units that you’ve frustrated over the years. We’ve organized these commitments from all the gun control groups you know about, plus public safety and public health organizations–including scores of local and county police chiefs and their officers–as well as healthcare workers’ unions, teachers’ unions, and PTAs. This is a nationwide commitment and we are ready.
“Everything else is regulated as various jurisdictions see fit, from standards for ladders to tools to children’s toys, to clothing, etc., as common sense and the voters decide. We are going to regulate guns too. Child toy safety law is to protect the lives of children and gun control is for the same purposes. Think this over and get back to us within the month or we begin our massive shift of people energy and resources toward our new goal.”
That’s how a BATNA can change the trajectory of a conflict.
That’s how “unwinnable” can flip to winnable.
Dr. Tom H. Hastings is Coördinator of Conflict Resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University.
