To avoid using statistics like a drunken man uses lamp posts—support rather than illumination—we should take a different look at the philosophy of gun ownership in America. It doesn’t take a statistics professor to see that the prohibition of drugs in this country has played a major, if not the largest, role in the prevalence of gun violence here in the United States.
From a strictly economic point of view, the respected economist Milton Friedman has keenly observed the role of the government has inadvertently protected the drug cartels. By keeping drugs illegal, the government has kept the little guy from entering the market. This lack of competition has kept the prices of these illegal commodities high. What better motivation is there than money to get a gun and use it to take this illegal profit? To make matters worse, how would you feel about gun control if your own government was responsible for supplying firearms to drug traffickers?
The United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has developed a violent method to fight the never-ending war on drugs called “gunwalking.”
These sting operations have allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell to unsuspecting criminals in hopes that these weapons will be tracked to drug cartel leaders. The largest of these sting operations, Operation Fast and Furious, has managed to collect only one-third of the total weapons dispersed as of February 2012. Some of these guns have been found on crime scenes on both sides of the border.
We have a government supplying weapons to criminals, assassinating “suspected” criminals without due process and, at the very same time, attempting to disarm a collectively innocent population only hoping to protect themselves from the enemy. The majority of the population is becoming increasingly unsatisfied with the behavior of congress, yet there are voters among us who are vehemently opposed to gun ownership.
The only role of government should be protection from violence, but what if they were the ones with the gun pointed at us? What if our government has become nothing more than a cartel themselves, engaged in price fixing, allocation of customers, allocation of territories and the division of profits?
Imagine a new rule in place requiring you to pay for something that you cannot afford, and morally have an obligation to avoid. Imagine your decision to protect yourself from this financial burden by ignoring the violent threats that have come through the mail. Imagine after ignoring those threats, the senders of those threatening letters finally arrive at your door, gun in hand, with an intent to kidnap you using intimidation and torture to get the money they say you owe them. Imagine if you tried to protect yourself from this physical force. You could be shot dead.
This new rule is a law. This payment is a tax. These thugs are wearing uniforms that read “IRS” in big, bold, intimidating letters on the front and back. That’s violence; that’s tyranny of the majority; that’s a gun pointed at you.
With this new perspective, who is the real enemy here? If the guns leave, then “We the People” leaves with it. The authority of the government stems from “the consent of the governed.” The government does not rule us; the government serves us. We must not trust that through successive generations we will become safer as a nation by slowly sacrificing our rights in exchange for pseudo-safety from the state.
The war on drugs has given us nothing. The war on drugs has given criminals a motivation for profit and, as a consequence, murder. We currently have a hypocritical government shouting anti-gun rhetoric behind a blockade of firepower. We have a government agency giving guns to murderous thugs and a presidential administration aiming to take yours away. The solution is simple: destroy the illegal drug trade and the tools of that trade will die with it. Ending the war on drugs will keep us much safer than any anti-gun legislation. There are not any guns used in the production and distribution of alcohol except where it is illegal. Simple common sense will reveal how ineffective the war on drugs has been.
Mike is a senior majoring in economics. Do you agree with his views on the drug war and current anti-gun sentiment? Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
