Something tells me that drugs are somewhat higher value per unit of volume than guns, and might be easier to smuggle in, or create yourself from raw materials.
I think the last stat I saw was that there were 300 million guns in the United States. If we passed a law tomorrow that said melt them all down, and we had a 90% compliance rate, we would still have 30 million guns, now with every single one of them in the hands of a criminal.
Is that a country you want to live in? Before, if a criminal tried to invade my house, I would have a chance because I would shoot back. Now, my family simply gets to die, but the sacrifice was for a left wing goal of a world without guns, so that must be a noble one.
Unsurprisingly it’s not that simple. If something which people desire to possess is made illegal then you’re going to create or expand the black market for that contraband. Many drugs are illegal throughout the US and yet hundreds upon hundreds of tons of drugs of various types are smuggled into the US every year. And since making something contraband can greatly increase it’s value you’re probably going to increase the black market exponentially and the cartels and other criminal organizations will start smuggling in an increased number of guns along with the drugs.
Not to mention that some of the methods for detecting drug smuggling wouldn’t work for detecting guns or gun parts to be assembled in country. It would also be much simpler to create a criminal enterprise for manufacturing guns within our borders and detecting and identifying their presence would suffer the same problems as doing so at the borders but to an even greater degree. Not saying it wouldn’t have it’s social benefits but it would also have its costs. And those costs could well outweigh the benefits.
The part where you waive your magic wand and make guns disappear. With 300 million guns out there, now all illegal, if I am a criminal, I just need to get my hands on one. And that gun will still be in use by my great-grandchildren.
I’ll inform your next of kin of your noble sacrifice, Hopalong. It’s amazing how I’ve lived in this hellhole called the United States without having a veritable arsenal in my house, ready to drill potential thugs, terrorists and other nogoodnicks at a moment’s notice, apparently carrying at least one weapon in hand at all times because Mr. Scumbag usually forgets to warn me adequately before he crashes through my front to violate my Cocker Spaniel. My gawwwd, what was I thinking? What of the children??
I’ve never been in a situation where a seatbelt, a helmet, or a safety harness has saved my life. It does not follow that these things are not needed or are not valuable. It is good that you have been fortunate so far in your life, but others have not been. Likewise, I have thankfully never had the occasion to even point a gun at another human.
Your argument seems to be the equivalent of since I have never been in a serious car wreck, then there is just no purpose to wearing a seatbelt or having airbags in my car.
But, surely you have heard of people murdered during home invasions and you have heard of homeowners literally saving their families’ lives by having a gun to protect themselves.
My point is that it is now easily and will forever be easy for criminals to get guns. That’s one of the things that criminals do: get shit that they are not supposed to get.
Especially when you are talking about something that takes only a single acquisition that will last for four generations. You haven’t addressed that.
If I have a heroin habit, I need to get my fix today, tomorrow, next week, etc. Yet we still cannot stop that. How are we going to stop a one time only necessary acquisition?
Not to mention entire countries where guns are heavily restricted.
I return to a point I made in an earlier thread: Other countries solved their gun problems, and America can’t. So I guess they must just be smarter than us. Because literally nothing else makes sense.
I’m not some idiot who thinks this will magically eliminate violence overnight. This is the long game.
You get 90+% of guns off the street with a program, now we are dealing with a much smaller population of weapons to deal with over the ensuing decades. Criminals who have guns need to keep them secret, otherwise one of their “friends” will use that info to cut a deal the next time they’re in trouble. Want to buy a gun, you need to find a seller, but sellers have to be very wary of stings, since the punishment for selling a banned weapon is likely to be extreme. Straw sales are completely over.
It will “forever” be easy for criminals to get guns… Will Conservatives ever tire of believing that Americans are useless idiots? That we can accomplish NOTHING we put our minds to?
Then tell me why we cannot get rid of heroin. Everything you said applies to that. Nobody should be buying heroin because their friends would rat them out. Nobody should be selling heroin because the penalties are steep.
And, respectfully, you are skipping over how you get 90+% of the guns off of the street. Outlaw them tomorrow and I will turn mine in. I’m a law abiding citizen and not a revolutionary radical. I turn my guns in and that doesn’t make you any safer because I am not going to attack you with my guns.
But Jimmy the Crack Dealer will not be turning his in. He is also violating the law with stiff penalties, so what is one more? So, congrats, you have made every person who would not harm you with a gun, and indeed would likely protect you with their gun if you needed it, surrender theirs while you still have the criminals with guns that will last nearly forever.
You’re a smart guy; you have to understand this. Prohibition would have worked if things worked like you are saying.
Sure. SCOTUS had even supplied you gun grabbers:p with a list of perfectly Constitutional gun controls.
"Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. Pp. 54–56."
But you cant ban large classes of guns, like all handguns or all semi-automatics. “Assault weapons” are a maybe, depending on how defined.
I don’t need to be any more worried about Jimmy tomorrow than I would be today, he has a gun today, and a gun tomorrow, what’s the damn difference? The fact that Quick Draw McUltraVires doesn’t have a gun to wave around if something happens? I’ll take my chances with Jimmy, thanks.
Prohibition would have worked if I couldn’t brew beer in my kitchen.