A Crack Down On Guns Is Coming
And how will it be sold? "The violence in Mexico is caused by the guns flowing South."
I have often said to gun owners that the biggest threat to them is drug prohibition. They were never much interested. I think their interest is going to rise.
Cross Posted at Classical Values
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9 comments:
I keep getting confused about the basis of your proposition ... you cite a lot of excuses, but the plain simple fact is that people can't be trusted with drugs.
They can barely -just barely be trusted with alcohol. And there are a range of lesser drugs available nicotine, caffeine and several "mild" herbs.
Do you really need one of your kids to develop a cocaine addiction and dying from it to convince you that people cannot deal with drugs ? Trust me, after such an event all your doubts about drug prohibition will be entirely gone.
tom,
You don't know what the hell you are talking about. The effects of all drugs is not the same and alcohol is probably the worst when it comes to functioning while intoxicated.
In addition drugs are not addictive. If they were every one who tries them would get "hooked". The number is around 10%. About the same as for alcohol. In fact those hooked on alcohol and the drug user populations overlap considerably.
And tom - where were all the dying kids when cocaine and heroin were over the counter and cheap as aspirin? Look up the justification of the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914. Children overdosing on cocaine was not one of them.
Let me add that it is harder for kids to get beer currently than it is for them to get illegal drugs. If you want to protect kids legalize and regulate. Just like beer. In fact that was one of the arguments used against alcohol prohibition. Too many kids coming to school drunk.
In any case the problems caused by prohibition will be used to justify new gun laws. I hope you are ready to give up your guns in order to see that children can get illegal drugs more easily than beer.
Very wise on your part to have the attitude you do.
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Let me add that it would be rather good if you actually knew something about the subject matter you profess expertise on.
Consumer Union Report On Licit and Illicit Drugs
The United States of America during the nineteenth century could quite properly be described as a "dope fiend's paradise."
Opium was on legal sale conveniently and at low prices throughout the century; morphine came into common use during and after the Civil War; and heroin was marketed toward the end of the century. These opiates and countless pharmaceutical preparations containing them "were as freely accessible as aspirin is today." They flowed mostly through five broad channels of distribution, all of them quite legal:
1) Physicians dispensed opiates directly to patients, or wrote prescriptions for them.
(2) Drugstores sold opiates over the counter to customers without a prescription.
(3) Grocery and general stores as well as pharmacies stocked and sold opiates. An 1883-1885 survey of the state of Iowa, which then had a population of less than 2,000,000, found 3,000 stores in the state where opiates were on sale--- and this did not include the physicians who dispensed opiates directly.
(4) For users unable or unwilling to patronize a nearby store, opiates could be ordered by mail.
(5) Finally, there were countless patent medicines on the market containing opium or morphine. They were sold under such names as Ayer's Cherry Pectoral, Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup, Darby's Carminative, Godfrey's Cordial, McMunn's Elixir of Opium, Dover's Powder, and so on. Some were teething syrups for young children, some were "soothing syrups," some were recommended for diarrhea and dysentery or for "women's trouble." They were widely advertised in newspapers and magazines and on billboards as "pain-killers," "cough mixtures," "women's friends, "consumption cures," and so on. One wholesale drug house, it is said, distributed more than 600 proprietary medicines and other products containing opiates.
You should really read the whole thing and maybe learn something.
I guess I better buy that extra ak-47 ive had my eye on...
@Simon
Actually according to my grandfather there were lots of addicts when those were over-the-counter drugs, especially just after WWII.
Everybody hated them because the chances of talking with anyone of them was minute. They scolded you, acted like "victims" to plead for your money$, or, worse, attacked you.
Stories about these people were avoided (though you will find stories about "famous" people finding their end that way, or ironic endings, such as the daughter of the director of an alcohol bottling plant dieing from mixing cocaine and alcohol, that sort of stuff). Contact with people like this was massively avoided (for good reason).
You see, it doesn't matter to those 10% how cheap drugs are. There are never enough. They're never cheap enough, and they will do anything, anything at all to get them (a fact that was frequently exploited by criminals even when drugs were legal).
Have you ever seen an addict ? Trust me if the drug war actually encouraged addiction, even just a bit, like you keep claiming, people would be arming themselves regardless of the government's opinion on the matter. And they would take some serious firepower.
Please take a look around you, if you can't visit an actual clinic, at least watch a movie like "trainspotting", and take a look at what drugs do to people.
Also I find your reasoning flawed "people do it (drugs) anyway, so we should allow it", after all, the very same argument is perfectly applicable to murder.
"people do it (alcohol) anyway, so we should allow it"
Your logic is flawed. Prohibition doesn't stop drug use, it just determines who will supply them.
You see what confuses you is the word "prohibited". As if the word reflected reality.
A lot of people are easily confused by words. So sad to see you among them.
01 19 09
M. Simon:
I agree with you wholeheartedly! I don't get these antidrug people. They often profess to be conservative, but they are authoritarian jerks who want to tell others how to live their lives. I don't think the Constitution says a damned thing about it being a crime to do drugs. People are so easily lead into giving up their rights it is sinful. And here is the rub; it is okay to kill an innocent child, but it is not okay to take 'unapproved pharmaceuticals'. Now ain't that crazy?
And now that I am done with that rant, your foresight is astounding. The war on drugs and guns are just wars on our rights. The liberal cabal wants us to voluntarily give up our rights for the good of the state. Screw that. I hope that the ACLU and other watchdog organizations take the administration to task for this.
M. Simon : you neglected to answer my question. Have you ever seen (met) an addict.
Preferably one that had no intrest whatsoever in recovering, but one in a hospital will do.
And once you've seen that, you will thoroughly understand the next question : how will you prevent that from happening ? Because a LOT of cost is indeed justified preventing people from becoming addicted.
Criminals will be criminals whether or not drugs are involved. I'm sure there is something they'd trade that you'd disagree with. How about trade in girls ? They'll have to turn to stuff like that. Criminals don't become citizens because their market evaporates. In fact, they usually become worse criminals. That's another reason fighting them (physically) is the only answer.
I knew an insulin addict once. He liked to shoot up in public just to bend people's minds.
BTW have you ever met some one so psychologically damaged by trauma that they couldn't function?
So the question is: do drugs cause addiction? If they do our present course might have some use. If they don't (if people are self medicating for some underlying problem) then the drug war is useless.
My studies say it is the latter. So give me some current evidence that drugs cause addiction. There is none. Zero. Nada. Zip.
The NIDA says addiction is at base a two factor problem. Genetic susceptibility triggered by some environmental trigger. I say that trigger is trauma.
Now if you have something recent from the NIDA that counters that I'd love to see it.
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And to top it off Prohibition makes drugs more available to kids than regulation. It is easier for kids to get illegal drugs than it is for them to get a beer.
So even if drugs cause addiction prohibition has the opposite of its intended effect. Plus prohibition finances criminals and terrorists. And soon the side effects of prohibition will be leading to a crackdown on guns. If those are your intentions - more criminals, more terrorists, and a crack down on guns then I'm sure you are loving prohibition.
Because: prohibition prohibits nothing. It only determines who will make the sale. Criminals vs drug stores.
And of course you are right Tom. Ending Alcohol Prohibition did nothing to reduce the murder rate, violence in the streets, or the number of criminals.
And you know I might even believe it if I hadn't studied the history of alcohol prohibition.
Now I'm a free market kind of guy and believe that if you subsidize criminals you will get more of them. And that economics guy, Milton Friedman, agrees with me.
The Drug War as a Socialist Enterprise by Milton Friedman
Oh, yeah. The dug war was invented as a racist measure. It is unfortunate that you support racism.
Drug War History
It always amazes me that folks on the right believe economics takes a holiday where drugs are concerned. It would tend to indicate that belief in Prohibition is a cult and not founded on reason. Well your church has a lot of members. But the worship services get a little ugly.
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