Let's climb on board the "wayback machine" and take a journey to the distant time of summer 2021.  To fulfill his "return to normalcy" pledge, Joe Biden was demanding a budget-busting (and inflation-triggering) $1.2T for infrastructure, and another $5T for Build Back Better (to apparently build it back better after he gets done breaking it).  Republicans (of the Vichy RINO variety) feverishly negotiated with the Dems to avoid fiscal Armageddon.  They successfully negotiated Armageddon down to a mere total disaster — agreeing to give the Dems a paltry $1.2T to distribute to their leftist pals.

President Asterisk held a Rose Garden announcement for the big reveal — showing the world the sting they had just pulled off.  He announced on national television that he and the congressional Democrats had duped the Republicans.  He was taking the infrastructure bill to the bank, and the Democrats would be pursuing the Build Back Better bill through reconciliation.  The Republicans hadn't negotiated the Democrats down from anything.  Playing the part of Charlie Brown, the Republicans had taken one more shot at the football.

And there they were, the Vichy RINOs — standing right next to Biden — grinning like the village idiots he had made them.  It was a learning opportunity — if the RINOs had any capacity to learn.  The whole episode once again proved the adage that there's a sucker born every minute.

Well, a few minutes have passed since then, and the Republicans are lining up to prove that the adage is still alive and well in Washington, D.C.  After the Uvalde school shooting, the calls for sensible gun control — from people who want total gun confiscation — became a cacophony.  But knowing that they'd probably control Congress next year, and could do anything they wished to address the problem, wasn't enough for the RINOs.  They decided to throw the Dems a lifeline now.  They jumped right on the "let's make fools of the Republicans again" bandwagon.

They negotiated a gun safety bill with the Democrats, which was short on "negotiation" and missed the "safety" point entirely.  You see, when the RINOs are involved, negotiating means deciding how much of the Democrats' wish list they'll surrender on.  Somehow, "compromise" never means getting something in return.

In exchange for red flag legislation, they could have demanded concealed carry reciprocity.  But they didn't even ask.  In exchange for expanded background checks, they could have included criminal liability for bureaucrats who disclose confidential gun ownership data.  But they didn't.  They didn't even bother to codify disciplinary action for government employees who fail to comply with the regulations — like failing to report criminal violations to the keepers of the background check database.

While they were having these so-called negotiations, did the RINOs even talk about the Soros prosecutors who have decided that criminal charges are something that applies only to Trump-supporters?  Did they bother to ask if this whole "forgiveness is a better deterrent than incarceration" philosophy is having any effect on our "culture of gun violence"?

But not to worry.  The Vichy assure us that this time Lucy — I mean the Dems — can be taken at their word.  The leftist radicals who now constitute one half of our two-party system will be happy with this bill and go back to trying to legislate a right to abort children up to the point where they move out of Mom's and Dad's basement.

So, thanks to our surrender monkey RINOs, expanded background checks are now the law of the land.  With that, the feds improve their ability to know where every gun in America is located.  But don't worry.  It's not about confiscation — as far as us uneducated proles know.

We'll ensure that every gun sale involves a background check — which will do nothing to reduce gun related crimes.  Did you notice that Hunter Biden was able to buy a gun — even though he lied on his background check application?  Does anyone believe he'll face any penalty for that?  With his father as president and Merrick Garland as the attorney general?  How about the fact that a number of recent mass shooters shouldn't have been able to pass a background check but still did?  Those instances happened because government bureaucrats were too busy taking COVID days off to bother reporting crimes to the background check database.

We're also going to pay the states to enact red flag laws.  Those would be the laws that empower every neighborhood Karen to harass gun owners.  What could possibly go wrong?  Surely, liberal know-it-alls won't use this to SWAT their ideological foes.  I mean, it's not as if they ever try to weaponize law enforcement or resort to violence or anything.

But all of that was not enough for the Dems.  They took their inch and are still demanding the whole mile.  They aren't happy with a partial win.  Unlike the RINOs, they don't negotiate away their end objectives.  For them, compromises are just a temporary stop on the path to total victory — with emphasis on the "temporary."

Now the House Judiciary Committee is discussing an assault weapons ban — which, if passed, will also be a mere temporary stop on the road total gun confiscation.  When accused of trying to ban guns in common use, Chairman "I didn't soil myself" Nadler responded, "That's the point."  He should have added, "Haven't you been paying attention?"  They haven't been.

I have a couple of questions for the Republicans.  Do you feel stupid yet?  Or are you too dumb to realize you've been played — again?

The Dems won't enforce our current gun laws — which criminals won't follow anyway.  The only people who will comply with more restrictions are law-abiding citizens.  They don't tend to go around shooting each other, because it's already against the law — which the law-abiding follow.  So the Republicans have "negotiated" increased restrictions on the law-abiding and the creation of a bunch of tools for leftists to use while harassing gun owners — and gotten nothing in return.  They rationalized it as "commonsense" gun laws — because they didn't have the common sense to see what this was really all about.  Do you get why we call the Democrats the evil party and the Republicans the stupid party?  Both titles are well earned.

John Green is a political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He has written for American Thinker, American Free News Network, and The Blue State Conservative.  He can be followed on Facebook or reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.

Image: Steve Garvie.