Many people who support the criminalization of private gun ownership are the very same people who support the decriminalization of hard drugs.
The case for decriminalizing hard drugs goes something like this: The "war on drugs" is an abject failure. Not only a failure, but counterproductive. Criminalizing drugs created a black market for drugs. It fueled organized crime, viz. drug smuggling from Latin American drug cartels–as well as domestic production (e.g. meth labs). It created a police state apparatus (e.g. SWAT teams; no-knock raids). And it had a disparate impact on minority communities. Minorities are more likely to be arrested on drug charges.
And I think that characterization is factually accurate. The question is whether the alternative is even worse. Both criminalizing and decriminalizing hard drugs will have dramatic tradeoffs.
But the purpose of this post is not to debate the pros and cons of that issue. Rather, this is my point:
The same argument which liberals use respecting the criminalization of drugs applies to the criminalization of firearms.
Now, gun-control advocates really want a national gun ban, along with gun confiscation. They don't admit that upfront. Rather, they pursue an incremental strategy. But restricting gun ownership to the police is their ultimate goal.
Suppose they got their wish. Suppose they succeeding in passing a national ban on private gun ownership (not to mention confiscation). What would be the result?
Wouldn't the predictable result parallel the "war on drugs"? It would create a black market for contraband firearms. So long as there's a demand, there will be suppliers to cash in on that lucrative market. It would foster organized crime. Gun traffickers. It would have a disparate impact on minority communities–where gun-related violence is rife. And it would expand the police state.
Gun control advocates love to ignore the fact that the areas with the toughest anti gun laws also have the highest gun crime rates. Chicago, with the toughest gun control laws in the country, just suffered it's 1,000th shooting as Obama politicized the Charleston massacre.
ReplyDeletePope says weapons manufacturers can't call themselves Christian
ReplyDelete"If you trust only men you have lost," he told the young people in a long, rambling talk about war, trust and politics after putting aside his prepared address.
"It makes me think of ... people, managers, businessmen who call themselves Christian and they manufacture weapons. That leads to a bit a distrust, doesn't it?" he said to applause.
He also criticised those who invest in weapons industries, saying "duplicity is the currency of today ... they say one thing and do another." - http://www.trust.org/item/20150621183811-et1rd
Which comes after almost 44,000 words of papal prolixity providing Catholic social teaching (based on moral teaching) in response to Climate Change, poverty, etc.
Which results in the non-infallible apologists of the non-official Internet Magisterium explaining how such social teaching does not require consent, despite the non-infallible by popes on non-infallible public papal teaching. As provided in debate here and here . Other RCs call conservative Cath dissenters "Protestant." Yet both RC camps are unified in error.
Thank God for the grace of God in Truth.
Link to aforementioned encyclical of Francis on Climate Change etc http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
DeleteThe propaganda for chemical elation, for artificial ecstasy and pseudo-nirvanic experience contains an invitation to men to become chemical dependents, and chemical dependents are weak people who can be made use of by any tyrannical political potentate.
ReplyDeleteMeerloo, Joost (2015-02-17). The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing (Kindle Locations 962-963). Progressive Press. Kindle Edition.