Of Guns and Drugs

The idea for this topic, pairing two topics into one, came to me the other day from one of those chain facebook pictures with political words on them.  So for whoever came up with that bumper sticker wisdom, thank you!

Guns and drugs, and the level of regulation of each by the government, are some of the most divisive topics in the land.  And by divisive, I mostly mean that people on both sides seem to just talk past one another without actually listenting to each year and finding areas of agreement.

Why I'm including these two topics together is that I see a lot of similarity in terms of how these topics became so divisive, and the fact that I think that both topics are ones that most people probably actually agree on most of the issues' major points, if they'd just allow themselves to go down that road.  But thanks in large part to gun control activists, the NRA, and anti-drug crusaders, it seems that these topics are usually discussed in an flurry of dumbed down and paranoid talking points instead of in substantive reality.

These topics are also a nice match because they expose more of the bizarre contradictions within both the stereotypical "conservative" and "liberal" political gangs.

In essence, both issues really come down to a debate about how much the government should try to prevent people from having/using objects/substances that can cause harm to a relatively small group of people.  In one of the issues (guns), it is the stereotypical conservative that supports people having access to the objects that can cause harm.  In the other (drugs), it is the stereotypical liberal that is in favor to people having access to the substance that can cause harm.

I'm guessing I've already caused some kneejerk outrage based on what I've said already... but bear with me and I think most will agree with my logic.

First, let's lay out the facts about guns:

1. Guns do, in fact, cause a great deal of injuries and death in our society.  If we could wave a magic wand and get rid of all guns in the world (except for hunting rifles), we'd be stupid to pass up on that chance, as the benefits would far, far, far outweigh the costs.
2. That magic wand doesn't exist.  And Pandora's box is open.  We will never be able to get rid of all guns.  Therefore, no matter what laws we pass, some people will still have guns.
3. Rifles serve a very real and utilitarian role in our society -- they are designed for hunting, which is vital part of wildlife management and also allows many people an effective way to put food on the table.
4. Rifles can, indeed, be used to kill people.  But they aren't really the best tool for the job.  Most people on people shootings are at close range and are of an ambush nature.  Rifles are not good for that purpose, and sniper-type murders just aren't that common.  Therefore, I don't see rifles as being particularly dangerous in our society.
5. The handgun was designed to kill people.  It can be used for other purposes (target shooting, defense against bears in the forest, etc.), but it's primary reason for existing is to kill people.  That makes it a very dangerous weapon in our society.  Of course, as noted, Pandora's box is open on handguns, and we will never purge our society completely of handguns.

So people who make the argument that "If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns," while not really a nuanced view of the issue, do have a point.  At the same, taken to the other extreme, if everyone has a handgun, that's a whole lot of crazy people out there with the ability to kill any of us really easily.  Handguns seem to be really shitty defensive weapons ... whoever lands the first bullet tends to win.

That said, no matter what laws we have, extraordinarily motivated bad guys will still have handguns.  Therefore, it seems reasonable to let people have handguns to protect their own homes and persons ... assuming there's nothing about them that would suggest that they are a danger to others by having one.

So setting aside the Second Amendment (an Amendment that Madison really should have spent a bit more time upon -- what a horribly confusing bit of writing that was), it seems to me that the best public policy would be to allow everyone to have handguns, as long as they are able to get over some rather short hurdles:

• Pass a gun safety class.  There are safety skills testing for using a car, and I think we're all happy about that.  Using a gun is equally dangerous, so passing a class or an exam to have a handgun seems reasonable.  We took "Hunter's Safety" classes growing up, and I think that was well worth it -- those lessons stuck. 
• Some kind of rudimentary psych test.  I walk by crazy people every day in San Francisco, and the idea of one of them having a gun is terrifying.  I've been threatened and yelled at many, many times by people whose grasp on reality is tenuous.  I usuallly just remain a bit cautious around them, and make sure I'm not close enough to get stabbed without having an eye on them.  But if they had a gun and decided that I was Satan that day (as some have in the past) ... well, I'm dead.  So I do think it makes sense to take steps to try to keep guns out of the hands of mentally unstable people.
• We already don't allow people who are felons to have guns in many places, and that seems reasonable as well.  If they've proven in the past that they are going to abuse guns (I like that phrase), then they should lose those rights for the future.
• If somebody is drunk or high or otherwise willfully impaired, and they are carrying a gun ... definitely needs to be illegal.

Long story short, I think everyone needs to acknowledge that handguns are, in fact, dangerous and do cause harm in our society.  At the same time, though, we do need to be practical about the fact that criminals should not have a competitive advantage over law-abiding folks when it comes to gun ownership.  We need laws that attempt only to remove guns from those most dangerous elements of society, while preserving the rights of the vast majority of people who can own guns responsibly.

As for the argument that we can't trust our government to enact reasonable laws to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, and how government people might instead discriminate against people ... yeah, that's always a possibility.  If we looked at our criminal justice system, one could certainly find historic examples of discrimination.  But I also don't see the risk of not being allowed to own a gun as being quite a dire as the risk of being executed for a crime one didn't commit.

My view on drugs is similar -- we need to balance freedom against the risk to society, and we need to do so based on some reasonable understanding of the issues instead of hyperbole of the activists.

For starters, we all need to agree that drugs and alcohol DO cause a lot of harm in our society.  So the anti-drug crusaders, and even the prohibition people in the 1920s did have a valid point.

However, we need to balance that against the reality that, for a vast, vast majority of users, alcohol and drugs are not inherently dangerous, and they do drive a lot of satisfaction from it.  Contrary to the rather bizarre arguments of some, people doing things that makes them happy DOES have value and should be given respect. 

So in my opinion, we just need to find that magic line in the sand to draw to determine where a drug is so dangerous that the harm it causes is greater than the joy people derive from using it.  People have tried to draw that line at alcohol, which is kind of a strange place to draw it, as most illegal drugs tend to be considered less dangerous than alcohol.  So I'd just argue that the line should perhaps be drawn at someplace like heroin instead of at pot, where it is now.

That would provide more freedom to Americans, less money spent needlessly prosecuting victimless crimes, and more tax revenue to put into drug dependency programs to treat the small minority that have problems with drugs and alcohol.  It would also have the huge advantage of bring that piece of our capitalistic society into the regulated sphere of the visible economy and out of the shadows of the violence-enforced world of the black market.

To state the obvious, anyone commiting a crime against another person because of their drug/alcohol use should be prosecuted ... including DUIs.  Allowing freedom while keeping people accountable for their actions should be the ideal goal of our nation's laws, in my opinion.