If you understand why the war on drugs is bad....

...why do you think a war on guns (or 'assault rifles') will be any different? Specifically, I want to know if you think:

-are guns (or 'ar's) any harder or easier to make?
-are guns (or 'ar's) any harder or easier to smuggle?
-are guns (or 'ar's) any more or less subject to the laws of supply and demand?
-are guns (or 'ar's) any more or less of a lucrative business for the criminal underworld?
-are gun (or 'ar's) restriction enforcement agencies less subject to being militarized and corrupted?

This isn't a debate about 'how dangerous' guns are... this is a debate about enforcibility, criminal cartels, the police state and the viability of trying to restrict a popular product with authoritarian bureaucratic controls. Take what you know about how trying to control weed has wrecked the country and describe why you think that doesn't apply to guns.

Unless you can identify a substantial difference between the viability of gun restrictions and, say, weed restrictions, or unless you think the war on drugs has been an overall success story in the US, then supporting a similar war on guns makes you a disingenuous hypocrite.

 

Isn't the USA the ONLY country where it is really easy to buy guns legally in. I know Mexico is extremely restrictive in gun sales, they arm up in the USA.

 

Yes. We also have the highest demand for a legal gun market.

Do you have any comments that pertain to the subject of the OP? For example- do you think gun restrictions in the US will be more effective and less destabilizing than marijuana restrictions in the US? And if so, why?

 

It is easy for criminals to obtain guns everywhere except countries like North Korea.

 

A bad guy with a gun can shoot up a classroom full of kids with bullets.

A bad guy with drugs can shoot up a classroom full of kids with heroin.

 

It will always be easier for a bad guy to get a gun than heroin for rather obvious reasons.

 

Reject the premise. Very few people (if any) are advocating for a "war on guns" in the sense that there was a war on drugs. The war on drugs meant they were illegal, period. And enforcement meant long, mandatory sentences for folks caught distributing and using those drugs. What common sense people like myself want are universal background checks and registration. Anyone who wants a gun and can pass a background check (i.e. is not a violent felon and does not have a history of domestic assault) can get one. Background checks help prevent people who shouldn't have them from buying them from a licensed dealer, and registration helps stop straw purchasing (note I said help, not absolutely prevent). Making them universal, meaning across the entire country, means a gang member in Chicago can't just go 20 miles to the Indiana border and get a weapon. That would help reduce the number of guns in the hands criminals lawful citizens could still have all the guns they want.

 

That is what my liberal friends thought before they went through the process. It is a long, complicated transaction.

Guns are not complicated. Any amateur machinist can make one and 3D printers can keep bad guys armed long after the last good guy has been stripped of his rights.

The war on drugs is a good example. The crackhead always finds a way to get crack. Criminals will always have guns.

 

Not nearly as easy in most countries in the world as it. is here in the good old gun worshiping USA

 

Can you grow guns in your back yard?

One is removing a product that it’s sole purpose is to cause death. The other is removing a plant that has been linked to almost zero deaths.

 

I can build guns in my back shop. With 3D printers and CNC mini-mills, so can anyone else looking to make a buck.

Has nothing to do with (lack of) viability of enforcement.

 

Do most people have this type of equipment? Most people have access to soil.

Let’s look at some other nations around the globe. None of them have had success banning marijuana but most of them had had success banning weapons. Why is the US so inept that it cannot do what everywhere else has been able to accomplish?

 

For the most part I agree, and I've made this argument myself.

We should look at the differences between the two, however. Cocaine and heroin are produced for pennies in South America and Asia, and sold to addicts who will steal to support their addictions. I don't think many would go to these lengths to buy an illegal gun.

 

Its not 'ineptness'. Its demand. They never had high demand for firearms. Just weed. We have high demand for both. 3D printers and CNC mini mills are gaining in popularity at about the same rate they are reducing in price, which is faster and faster, in part because it so easy to use one to make and sell more... Its like, instead of buying things from companies that build those things with robots, you just buy the robot. If you look on amazon and ebay, like half the stuff on there is stuff ppl printed in part or entirely at home. Metal printers have just in the past year become affordible to small businesses. Soon, hobbyists.

 

This is what it boils down to. Even in the "Wild West" they knew that there had to be limits...

 

K... but why do you think restrictions that didn't work for weed will work for guns? To review- guns can be made at home with relatively inexpensive tools, can be smuggled with similar ease as weed, and can easily be made just as untraceable as weed.

...or do you think weed restrictions have been successful?

 

Stolen guns are already a common problem. Either that, or the laws passed in WA a few years ago were addressing a problem that doesn't really exist... If people steal guns, they will steal or commit other crimes to get guns.

 

Being caught with an unsecured firearm in public should carry severe penalties. You can have whatever splits your banana inside your home or on your property, but one millimeter outside of that and it could be your ass - figuratively and literally. There must be limits in public, and that's the easiest way to separate the sheep and the goats.

 

What about banning 'assault rifles'? Do you think restrictions that didn't work for weed will work for guns?

 

No - and I don't advocate for it.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Note which of those unalienable, God-given rights is listed first. Public and open carry must be banned, with draconian penalties for those too arrogant or stupid to comply.

 

So you think the war on DRUG'S was all about cannabis? Well you would be wrong again..

 

Again you are wrong. Do you believe that heroin/opioids/tar opium, meth, ice, molly have no effect on life?

And thats just opiods!

 

You're really gonna love concealed carry.. The whole U.S. will finally be like the ghetto's where CC is the norm like thugs and drug dealers..

 

Actually that how the thugs and drug dealer afford all those firearms.. Stop the influx of schedule one drugs (minus Cannabis) and the wrong people will not be able to afford guns, well as many maybe..

 

Not really, that the reason it was dropped and the reason it hasn't been reinstated..

Was the Ban Effective at Reducing Gun Violence In General?

ABC News