Guns, when used responsibly, can be a largely non-destructive (and some would argue positive) force in society. The same can be said for drugs. Guns can kill people, some drugs can also kill people. Guns are legal while many drugs (marijuana, LSD, mushrooms, cocaine, etc) are not. So why are guns legal while drugs are not? And moreover, why are so many gun owners against drug legalization? Can their arguments logically be held valid towards guns and not towards drugs?
People can be killed in an infinite number of ways utilizing an infinite number of items - I fail to see the correlation.
As for gun owners, who says they don’t support at least limited drug legalization?
You’re painting with some extremely broad brushes…
Cite?
I didn’t say all. I said many. Are you guys denying that there are many pro-gun anti-drug people out there, or that it is a common sentiment among mainstream Republicans (for example, like the people who didn’t want their kids to see the Obama speech earlier in the week)? You can correct me if I’m wrong. I guess I don’t really know what I’m basing this view on, but I suppose I just have a strong intuition that it’s true.
Any sex with a minor or with an animal is a crime because of the idea of “consent”. It’s felt that a minor or an animal is not mentally developed enough to properly weigh options and offer a reasonable answer.
A person who is mentally insane who kills a person while in a psychotic state is treated differently in a court than is a person who had complete understanding of his actions and went ahead and acted.
Etc.
Overall, we can say for certain that extant law supports the idea that a person’s ability to make rational decisions is a way to legally discriminate for or against a person, though there might not be any actual difference in the physical act.
Drugs are, by definition, mind-altering. They are also, generally, addictive. Both of these significantly lower the ability of the person to make a rational choice. The person is, pretty much, turning himself into someone who is mentally unstable and hence unreliable and unpredictable (in theory) which is a public danger.
I’m wagering the pro/anti drug split with gun owners is probably about the same as non-gun owners.
Absolutely no correlation with people who didn’t want Obama speaking to their kids at school instead of at home.
Seems you’re just trying to paint gun owners as knuckle dragging heathens without providing any evidence to back up that claim, other than your strong intuition that is.
There is a constitutional amendment protecting the right to bear arms (and according to SCOTUS, it is an individual right to bear arms). I’m not sure gun owners are against drug legalization because they are gun owners, it probably has more to do with geography. Drugs are less effective than guns if I want to protect myself or hunt so Drugs do all the bad things guns can do and you can’t even kill bambi’s mother with it (unless you get creative).
I don’t understand your qualm. I never said that the pro-gun/anti-drug sentiment was representative of everyone who was pro-gun, and I didn’t say it even the majority. I did say that I think it’s a mainstream opinion, an assertion that you seem to agree with. Regardless, you’re not even addressing the substance of my question, which is about the commensurability.
Guns do not alter the minds of people. Drugs do. You can run all around town with a gun and be perfectly safe. You can run all around town under pot and be perfectly safe, if a little slow on the trigger.
… running around town on LSD… not such a good idea. (Nor, of course, alcohol.)
Guns and drugs are not similar in any way. They are no more similar than hacksaws and lima beans. There is no equivalence to be drawn here.
So, a gun doesn’t make its owner feel like a badass and able to take on anyone? Or give them a false sense of security?
Yeah, i’ll bet!
How is it a false sense of security?
No, but insulting people apparently makes you feel better about yourself.
That’s sad. 'Cause both guns and drugs (not at the same time!) are more fun than that.
Because having a gun in your pocket or in your home, doesn’t mean you are going to reach it before your attacker pulls his/hers on you, unless you are Buffalo Bill’s descendant or something.
“Badass” isn’t an insult. Aliken it to the word “confident”.
It also doesn’t protect you from rogue asteroids. But just because it doesn’t make you invulnerable to all harm doesn’t invalidate the concept completely. Against a criminal who does not realise you are armed, or against one that is wielding a knife or club, a firearm does make you more secure.
Nope.
In fact, in conversations I have had with 3 different folks with CCW licenses, they all stated that while carrying they are more likely to back down from an altercation.
This was a young guy living in a rural area, and older fellow who also lived in a rural area, and a younger guy living in an urban environment.
I am aware that anecdote != data, but I have read this same sentiment over and over again.
I think you’re thoughts here are being colored by your personal bias.
Well, as I don’t live in a society which has guns, but think it likely to be far more safer than one with guns, obviously I have a personal bias.
So, you are basing your ideas on an environment you have no experience with?
Drugs are banned because we fear how they’ll change society as a whole if they become widespread. (Originally it was feared they’d make everyone into commie hippies, but other scenarios can be painted as well.)
Many other reasons to ban drugs are bullshit.
With guns… well, we already know what society would be like and it’s really not that bad, especially with proper policing. But hell, that may be the way society would be under drugs too.
In what way could drugs (of the sort that are now illegal) be a positive force in society?
If you take away a person’s guns, you take away their power (real and/or perceived). This could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on whose power you’re taking away and what they’d be using it for, but it is a fundamental difference from the drug issue. Whatever else drugs do for you, they don’t make you more powerful or more able to protect yourself (unless of course we’re talking about drugs that have legitimate medicinal uses).
The same way alcohol is, and also in other ways: I think you would not have a hard time finding people who have had very profound and live-changing epiphanies while using illegal drugs, particularly psychedelics. Changes in perception and thought, however temporary, can elicit major changes in self-conception, direction, and behavior in the future. There’s plenty of anecdotal and scientific evidence for this.