
Originally Posted by
Viekn
I'm all for people continuing to speak up, advocate, and put pressure on our government for Paul Whelan's release, but Shawn Farash's 1st point was ludicrous and smacks of the same "looking for reasons to be offended" argument that the right looks to label a lot of the left with.
If you think the general public that makes up the American firearms market, whether legal or illegal, even registers on the radar of a Russian arms dealer nicknamed "The Merchant of Death", you're either delusional or purposely bending the situation to further your agenda. Bout is likely responsible for brokering multi-million dollar arms deals with foreign governments and militias (and yes, I'm sure some of those are on behalf of the US government), of which gun control issues in the US have little relation to.
When you're the party actively and quite publicly looking to get something from another party, and especially if you're being pressured in some way to get it, your side does not hold the power in that negotiation, so you will almost never walk away with what would be considered "a good trade". The only way a "good trade" is likely to happen is if both sides were publicly seeking it at the same time and both were equally pressured in some way to make it happen.
In this case, Griner's family, the WNBA, parts of the American public, members of the American government, were all, very publicly, pushing for a deal to be made. Absolutely no one in Russia was lobbying to get Viktor Bout released or pressuring Putin to get it done. We were never going to get what anyone would call a good trade for getting Griner back.
It's the same thing in Gemstone. If you're the one publicly looking to buy a weapon on PC and you felt pressured in some way to buy it ASAP, whoever owns whatever you're wanting to buy has the power to demand of you whatever they want. Of course, you don't have to pay what they're asking, but remember, you're the one who feels pressured to buy it in this scenario, not the seller. The same thing happens when the rolls are reversed and someone is desperately trying to sell something. If they're the ones actively and publicly seeking a buyer, they likely aren't going to get as much for it as they'd like.
However you feel about President Biden and his administration, getting Griner for Bout was the only way Russia would let her go, so you can't really classify them as tools for this. For other things, yes, but not for this.