I like to stay out of these things, but a squadie and I have been talking about it. Here is what I feel.So I ask, is the problem that I want to own guns, or is it that so many people are being murdered and many of them by guns? (According to the FBI's 1998 Uniform Crime Reports, there were 16,914 murders in the US. 9,143 of these involved firearms )
If the real problem the latter, then it shouldn't matter if I want to own one gun or a bunch. So, the real question is, how do we reduce the number of murders (after all, why not try and reduce all of them, not just gun deaths)?
The two cities in the US with the highest per capita murder rates are Baltimore, MD at 47.1 per 100,000 and Washington DC at 49.7 per 100,000 (source: FBI's 1998 Uniform Crime Reports). Now I can also tell you that these cities have some of the most restrictive and constrictive gun control laws in the nation. (Detroit, New York and Philadelphia also rank up there)
This tells me that gun control regulations don't work. Or at least they haven't yet. Which means to me that more isn't going to help things. So where to from here? (I realize that we can argue over this, but you can't say there is no connection between these facts)
So let me offer two propositions:
ONE:
Today in Tennessee, a man went to court for a child-custody hearing against his estranged wife. Very few more highly charged emotional situations exist. Well, this man lost his hearing and custody of his kids. So he walked out to his car, got a shotgun and waited for his wife. When she and her friend walked out, he shot and killed both of them (not sure why he killed the friend, he must have felt she was also somehow responsible for what happened). Then he reloaded and shot their bodies until he was out of ammunition again. He got in his car and drove off.
Why do I mention this? To underline the fact that as long as people have been on this earth, people have made the decision to commit the ultimate act of violence. And for whatever reason, this man made that decision. From this I feel that two things can be assumed. First, he either thought he might or knew he was going to loose this hearing. This explains why he brought the gun to court. And from this I feel we can safely assume that he planned on killing his wife if he lost the hearing. More gun control would not have stopped this. It would not have mattered if he'd had to use a gun, knife, hammer, weedwacker or his Buick. He was going to kill this woman. In other words, there are situations and times when, even if we magically made all the world's guns disappeared, violent acts would happen.
How do I know this is a fact? Well, while we've read all about the teen in San Diego who, after feeling like he'd had enough, took a .22 pistol to school, shot 4 people and wounded several others. However, this has overshadowed the events here in Northern California of a week earlier. A teen who, feeling like he'd had enough, took his car and ran into a group of students at a bus stop. He killed four people and wounded several others. Some people are going to kill and there is nothing you can do about it. All the laws in the world wont stop it.
But, you say, sure there are going to be murders that more gun control can't stop. But what about all the killings in places like Washington and New York City? What to you propose we do about that? Well, here is what I propose,
SECOND:
Let me preface this by saying that in my time at law school I've worked for the US Attorney's Office prosecuting misdemeanors, including drug offenses. Right now I'm working for the San Francisco DA's office. And I'm helping prepare the prosecution of a murder case where the defendant was a habitual drug user and was one a three day meth-amphetimine binge when he beat his girlfriend's head in. My father is a Asst. County Attorney in Arizona and has worked with the SouthWestern Border Alliance which is a multi-departmental organization fighting drugs in Arizona, California and New Mexico. Of his two best friends, one is a DEA agent and the other is getting ready to retire from the US Customs service. Both of these men have spent their lives as local and government law enforcement officers. All of us have been, in one way or another, on the "front lines" of the drug war. And they all feel the same way I do.
The biggest cause of crime in the US and the biggest waste of our money is the "Drug War". The US spends over $30 billion every year on this rat hole. A Asst. Dist Attorney I work with said it best, "If they could show me that just 70% of the drugs on their way to our streets is being stopped, I'd say it was worth it. But they can't. If more than 6% of the drugs bound for the US are stopped, I'd be suprised."
Now what does this have to do with gun crimes here in the US (what it has to do with the amount of money used to fund para-military police forces and crime in third world countries is a whole other subject. See: Why the War on Drugs has Failed)? Simple.
Do you know that the US has seen per capita murder rates just as high as the 1980's and 90's? Yep, during the 1920's and early thirties. An average of 8.27 murders per 100,000 from 1920-34 and 9.48 per 100,000 for 1980-94 (National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics, Revised, July 1999). Now what do these two periods of time have in common? A war on drugs. A war on booze and a war on cocaine. The fact that criminal elements had taken control of a major aspect of society and were willing to kill to keep it. One war the government was forced to admit has failed, one it is afraid to.
So here is my contention. End the War on Drugs and you will reduce violence as a whole and as a part of that, gun violence. I'm willing to bet cash money that gun violence would be reduced by 70%.
Look back at the amount of money the government wastes on the Drug War. $30 billion dollars every year. Hell, place drugs under the FDA and make sure they're quality. Right there you save money on bad trips ending up in the hospital (which cost the taxpayers). Then tax the bejeezus out of it the same way we do booze and cigarettes. Make it illegal for people under 21. Can you imagine the amount of money you'd make?
Think about what that money could be used for. Billions of dollars for schools for the improvised inner cities where most of this violence takes place. Better schools and education. Give these kids something else to do besides shoot each other over turf and drugs. Pay for rehab and prevention. Right now most of the prevention and rehab centers are paid for by taxpayers. And they are underfunded to the point of being almost ineffectual. Pay for daycare and healthcare. Pay for programs to teach skills. Give these kids some hope for the future. A place to belong besides the gang. Pay for more teachers and counselors and maybe things like Columbine and San Diego might be prevented.
You do that and you reduce the feeling these kids have that they must kill to prove themselves. Or to pay for their drugs. Or gain acceptance by their gang. It is the only way. And when you've done that, you've reduced the amount of violence period. Because, while school shootings get the headlines, the real problem is in the inner cities. Reduce the violence there and you'll see a huge reduction across the board.
I'll say this again, you legalize drugs (and control them) and you'll reduce violence, including gun violence, by 70%. And if we do that we wouldn't be having this conversation because it wouldn't matter if I had guns or not.
Let me leave you with one thought. Never in the history of mankind has a disease been cured by attacking the symptom. You may hide it. You may even help people forget it's there. But it will never be cured that way. Ever. It will continue to be a problem until it kills you.
You must attack the cause. Or else you waste your time
PS, this is a follow-up post to the one above:
On June 6, 1998, a surprising letter was delivered to Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations. "We believe," the letter declared, "that the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself."
The letter was signed by statesmen, politicians, academics and other public figures. Former UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar signed. So did George Shultz, the former American secretary of state, and Joycelyn Elders, the former American surgeon general. Nobel laureates such as Milton Friedman and Argentina's Adolfo Perez Esquivel added their
names. Four former presidents and seven former cabinet ministers from Latin American countries signed. And several eminent Canadians were among the signatories.
The drug policies the world has been following for decades are a destructive failure, they said. Trying to stamp out drug abuse by banning drugs has only created an illegal industry worth $400 billion U.S. "or roughly eight per cent of international trade." The letter continued: "This industry has empowered organized criminals, corrupted governments at all levels, eroded internal security, stimulated violence, and distorted both economic markets and moral values." And it concluded that these were the consequences "not of drug use per se, but of decades of failed and futile drug war policies."
- Source: United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Economic and Social Consequences of Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking
The actual number spent by the Federal Government domestically to fight drugs is 19.2 billion (Source: Office of National Drug Control Policy)
Then you throw in $273,841,000 that was given to other countries by the State Department (
http://www.state.gov/g/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2000/index.cfm?docid=887)
Plus $8 billion spent on drug offenders in prision (a whole generation of black Americans) - (Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Profile of Jail Inmates 1996) Now realize that this number is 5 years old, so that it may be up to $10 billion.
So that adds up to roughly $30 billion. Which is still a hell of a lot of money. Right now the Department of Education's budget is $38 billion (Source: US Dept of Education Budget Office)
So what you end up with is the US Government almost spends as much on the drug war as it does on education.
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Col Dune
C.O.
352nd Fighter Group"The Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney" "Credo quia absurdum est." (I believe it because it is unreasonable)
- The motto of the Republic of Baja Arizona
