I can't help but laugh when I see the fringe hippies and their tie-dyed friends protesting for "common sense" gun control and their hope for the demise of the Second Amendment.
They don't see any issue, however, with smoking marijuana. Pot is no big deal right? Perhaps all of their psychedelic mushrooms, acid trips, and VW bus exhaust have addled their brains, because there is no way to deny that guns and drugs are inextricably linked, and their demand for pot plays a necessary and significant role in the violent crime culture.
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It's only fair that I put my cards on the table. I'm an advocate for the decriminalization of, or preferably, the legalization of drugs. I disagree with those that say we'll see an epidemic of addiction to hard drugs. Let's get real; if one wants drugs, they're easy to find. Drugs also will lose their allure when they cease to be illegal. That thrill and adrenaline rush you get when you're doing something you aren't supposed to do disappears and suddenly, they're not a big deal anymore.
Now that we have that out of the way, let's chat about the correlation between guns and drugs, including pot.
If you're a casual pot smoker, you most likely don't see any evidence of a connection. You call your friend or dealer, order by whatever code you've worked out, and meet at their house, your house, or the nearest grocery store parking lot. Done.
What you fail to think about are the bigger cheeses, the dealers who are holding thousands of dollars of inventory. Do you think they trust an ADT system to secure their product? Not likely. They're trusting Smith & Wesson, Colt, or Glock to guard against possible theft or territorial encroachment.
What is the jelly to drugs peanut butter? Gangs. Adam Bates of CNN writes:
"Illicit drug proceeds are the lifeblood of gang behavior, and competition over market 'turf' is the primary driver of gang violence. The government estimates that more than 2,000 homicides a year are gang-related. That's two orders of magnitude higher than mass shootings, which on average take around 30 to 40 people's lives a year nationwide."
Let's shift focus for a moment to consider Prohibition. From Ken Burns, "Roots of Prohibition:"
"By 1830...alcohol abuse (primarily by men) was wreaking havoc on the lives of many, particularly in an age when women had few legal rights and were utterly dependent on their husbands for sustenance and support."
Prohibition did nothing to stop alcoholism, but it directly led to an explosion in organized crime. Adam Bates again:
"During alcohol Prohibition in the 1920s and '30s, violent crime, murder and killings of police officers skyrocketed as criminal cartels seized urban streets. After Prohibition ended, the murder rate declined for 11 consecutive years."
This is an irrefutable example of the "Law of Unintended Consequences" that is so often the result of big government regulation. It didn't work with alcohol and it's not working with drugs. Why would you think that a prohibition on firearms would have a different result? I believe there’s a saying about what it means to do the same thing over and over with the same result, something about insanity I believe.
So my liberal, hippie, flower children friends, complaining about guns while you're passing a joint is pretty hypocritical dudes, because you can't divorce the two unless and until drugs are made legal. The drug crime problem in the inner cities goes hand in hand with black market guns and violence, an inconvenient fact. Taking the guns of normal law-abiding folks will never create the utopian vision you seek.
All of us abhor violence; you don't have a corner on that market. Understand however, that your lifestyle choices are far more likely to lead to violence and death, than the behavior of drug-free folks like me, who advocate for the rights of gun owners. Chew on that when you get the munchies.
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