Gun Ownership Freedom vs. War On Drugs

With all the gun ownership supporters being so vocal these days, I'm curious to find out how those against gun control feel about the war on drugs.

It seems to me that if people should have a right to own guns responsibly, they should also have a right to do some coke after work if they want to, smoke a joint on a sunny day in the park, or spend a lazy Sunday snorting heroine (so long, of course, that they do it responsibly without harming others).

I know this sounds like a big troll, but I'm genuinely curious.

Anyone care to weigh in?

Personally I'm never in favour of legalising heroin, its a horrible dirty drug that just wrecks and then kills people and has a massive negative social impact. Pretty much every other drug is substantially less troublesome in every way so I'm fine with those. I guess I might throw meth and crack in with heroin, I don't really know much about them.

Weed should not be as demonised as it is. Its no worse than alcohol and tobacco so if you aren't going to ban them then you shouldn't ban weed either. The rest would all be much safer if they were produced by qualified people instead of criminals.

Punishing people for possession or use with jail time is also rarely productive.

Ain't that nice that Libertarians are perfectly happy with everyone having guns and drugs.

Ron Paul FTW.

-t

The drug war is responsible for gun crime in the first place (in as much as gun crime is really just crime performed with a gun). If we didn't work so hard to create a black market where murder was required in order to enforce contracts, there would not be such a large driving force behind the need to commit violent crimes in the first place. The choice of which weapon to use to perpetrate those crimes would become moot. That underground drug culture keeps people poor (by driving up the cost of drugs and the cost of living due to all the wasted resources on all sides from implementing and evading prosecution) is also a driving force for crime in general, as poverty correlates more strongly with violent crime than any other cofactor found to date.

The fact that there is an overlap between the people who support gun rights and drug enforcement is ironic, I'll give you that. I don't speak for them I only speak for me. The only "smart" reason I can think of for someone supporting both is to use drugs as a convenient scapegoat that never goes away and never defends itself.

This is the bit that confuses me. Politically, at least, it sure seems like the majority of the proponents of the war on drugs come from the same camp that supports the right to bear arms. Seems like there's an obvious double-standard there.

The same goes for many other policies on "taboo" issues, of course. Abortion and Prostitution come to mind as well.

It's not that big a double-standard. If you believe in the ideal of the bill of rights, then you can't support any "work around" of any of our rights protected by it. Otherwise you open the door for all rights to be abandoned whenever it's convenient. Drugs, abortion and prostitution aren't protected by the bill of rights, but guns are.

You also have to allow for the possibility that "conservative" merely means to conserve things the way they were, and historically guns (and god) were commonplace, and abortion wasn't. Prostitution was though, I don't know how that fits in. It's the oldest profession after all. Maybe it's a carry-over from that god thing I mentioned.

It's not irrational to carry the idea that we "won" the past so why not just stick with what works. Also that we're pretty well-off objectively speaking, and there's more ways for any random change to make things worse than better.

You should be able to have guns, you should be able to have drugs.

Simple.


Edit: hookers and baby killing too... and blackjack!

It's also nice that most people seem to understand how wildly unrealistic expecting people to be responsible is.

That people will be irresponsible is known as "the price of freedom".

Maybe I'm mistaken, but the irony here is I'd guess we agree on all the freedoms remarked upon above, until you go off the rails when it comes to guns.

If I'm going to let people gamble, snort coke, be a prostitute, and kill their unborn child, letting them have a gun is a smaller jump than you seem to think.

If people actually wanted to be irresponsible to any great extent, society would collapse almost overnight.

And it needs to be said, the epidemic of gun violence is because of three things:

1) Prohibition
2) Poverty
3) Prisons

Note how none of these things have the term "gun" in them.

The way I see it there needs to exist a balance between freedom and the price of it, and it is incredibly annoying to me that many people advocate realities in such binary, absolutist terms - i.e. we're either living in a socialist tyranny, or virtual anarchy where personal responsibility helps establish order.

There was a guy in somebody's Facebook thread I'm friends with somebody who was saying that there should be no restrictions on weapons whatsoever, and that if the Westboro Baptists wanted nuclear weapons they should be allowed to have them. I think he even said that if will work out fine because if they were to abuse their power and/or act irresponsibly they'll pay the price for their actions - as if they'd either care, or be alive to care.

The thing is, there is no point in living in some delusional fantasy world where we are only concerned for what makes us happy while disregarding those around us, we're all in this together because as human beings, being the tool builders we are, we work best and can do more when working together to accomplish things. This means that in some cases what you deem your personal freedom (e.g. owning some ridiculous weapon, not wearing your seatbelt, driving some ridiculously unsafe vehicle, getting stoned/drunk and leaving your house, wanting to put some obnoxious renovation on your house, starting fires where you want, polluting the air and water as you please, making various decisions resulting in a dependence on welfare, abusing welfare, etc.) can and does impact others. It sounds good going on about your freedom, making various arguments invoking the constitution as is convenient for you, and what have you, but it would be lovely if people were a little more reasonable and at times less selfish.

It is unrealistic to expect that people will be more reasonable and less selfish, just as it is unreasonable to expect that people will be responsible, but perhaps it isn't unreasonable to help and expect people to see that most things in life exist in a balance, including these sorts of issues. Nobody wants a nanny state, yet going too far on the Libertarian end of things is impractical too - "freedom" is practical up to a point.

Are you talking to me or your Facebook guy?

I'm talking to people who think like Turtle.

Perhaps he was the one you should have quoted.

What do you say to my assertion the issue with guns is the three Ps as opposed to the ease with which they can be procured?

So what ?

What gives you and your fellow lefties the right to be everybody's nanny ?

-t

I think the issue with gun violence is due to a larger phenomena involving a cultural clash which is pretty much impossible to define in a precise way. I think the sorts of things we have been discussing are symtoms of this larger, multifaceted "thing" - whatever you want to call it.

I know that is incredibly vague, but I think I'm right because clearly this isn't a debate that can stand on its own simply by examining facts and reason, no matter what side those facts and reason support.

I will list some of the ingredients to all of this though:

- powerful monied interests (e.g. the NRA)
- self entitlement
- heated conservative vs. liberal rhetoric (no surprise there)
- powerful manipulative tactics where the constitution is used as a tool
- fear/paranoia
- the media
- a byproduct of this brand of capitalism and democracy
- the Smurfs

It's not a right, it's just a sharper focus on reality.

How should I interpret the things I listed (which I firmly insist are the root cause of the problem) don't even rate as an "ingredient" for you?

With the exception of prohibition since I'm not sure what you mean by that, they do fit, they are all woven into our culture. My list was not intended to be complete.

Drug prohibition.

I see.

It's weird how precedents work and how they are set, huh? I mean, because people are used to certain drugs being illegal there will be people that resist efforts to legalize drugs. The other side will go on about personal freedom. There are those who will get intensely emotion about any sort of gun legislation citing their personal freedom, yet are now longer protesting having to wear a seatbelt in part because they are used to this now.

Granted, the stakes are higher with guns are opposed to seatbelts, but the same fundamental infringement upon liberty has been installed into seltbelt laws.

To me the drug argument has a great deal to do with precedent.

Sorry, I realize this is taking things off topic, I just wanted to add this because I really don't disagree with anything you've said. This thread just needed a little besson3c magic.

1) Hookers
2) Blackjack
3) Blow
4) Baby Killing
5) Guns
6) No Seatbelt Laws

7) No Helmet Laws

Where are the Smurfs?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v8...EB9BD7A699.jpg

8) Married Homos
9) Married Married Polygamists
10) If You Can Vote, You Can Drink
11) The Bar Owner Gets To Decide If Smoking Is Allowed

12) Let In Mexicans

I had a fix for our immigration issues last year (or was it the year before?) but it was ignored because it was "too reasonable". Since no one wanted to fight over it, it was promptly ignored.

How's about this: No magazines >8 rounds, except on your land (notice I said land and not "property")? If found in violation, it's the same penalty as unlawful carry.

What are we trying to accomplish?

Is this intended to curtail mass shootings?

From what I can tell, it's feel-good legislation to make certain people happy.

Until the legislation gets crippled to worthlessness by the pro-gun objectors, the idea that the Obama just wants to keep people happy rather than actually reduce spree killings is just propaganda. Its ridiculous to suggest that your president is more interested in setting up his government for tyrannical rule than he is in saving the lives of innocent citizens.

Legislation that might actually work will never get passed. The goal is to curtail mass shootings but the right will fight any worthwhile law changes so the proposed laws get hobbled in the name of compromise and what you end up with is something that gets passed to make people feel like something has been done. This is all Obama can do because its all he is allowed to do.

Excellent, now work on those anti-machete laws before all your people cut each other up into bait.

And the arguments circle around again. Yawn.

Machetes have other uses. Guns do not.

Target practice (leisure), sports, hunting for food. Just because you fear them, doesn't mean they aren't otherwise useful.

I know, it's different when someone points out the "barbarism" in your own country, right?

I think you're right here. While the Supreme Court has left plenty of room for banning weapons like assault rifles, and there is certainly some political will to do so, my feeling is that the will is fleeting, while the NRA's coffers are large. On the other hand, the NRA constituency is dying out- so a few years of wrangling, along with more of with the irrational and offensive arguments they're currently shouting, may produce some reasonable results.

So I reckon self-defense is not a reasonable use in your mind ?

-t

I'm so glad you didn't say "to defend ourselves against government tyranny".

Blowing the living bore out of Bambi must be a lot of fun.

No one has to "intend" to set the government up for tyrannical rule in order for the government to one day find itself set up to facilitate tyrannical rule. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Its a self-perpetuating use.

That doesn't make it unnecessary.

This is false. It's paved with hot tar and shards of glass.

It kinda does.

That... explains a lot

Indeed. There are some profound differences in ideology here, it isn't just a misunderstanding.

Doesn't that sum up this sub-forum?

Not always, but on this subject there won't be common ground.

Was it here where someone pointed this out about abortion? I think it applies to guns.

Pro-lifers think babies are getting murdered. The pro-choicers don't. The pro-lifers will not only never convince the pro-choicers that's what's happening, most pro-choicers aren't even willing to consider the possibility.

The reverse is true as well. Good luck convincing a pro-lifer you aren't murdering a baby.


Ironically, even though I'm pro-choice, I have more sympathy for the rigid thinking of a pro-lifer than a pro-choicer.

To the extent that some are bound by ideology, yes.

There's another parallel with abortion, and the death penalty, too- the arguments are complicated by legal complications. And as we've seen, some people have a hard time making the distinction between legal rights and moral rights (especially for those who refuse to admit the existence of something so ugly as morality), so we get some pretty ridiculous arguments.

Well, for one thing, it can be more internally consistent, although in my experience, that often goes out the window when you talk to pro-lifers about other matters.

Ironically, I'm anti-death penalty. "Kill em' young" is my motto.