The war on guns: Joel Miller explains how drug cops are killing 2nd Amendment

When anti-gun agitators wish to hack away support for Americans' right to keep and bear arms, they must utter only one word: crime. It's the catch-all, the single basket into which they toss all their rotten eggs. The problem of crime, they say, can be solved if we just get rid of all those danged firearms.

In "The Real War on Crime," for instance, members of the National Criminal Justice Commission note, "We know that some things work to make us safer," after which they lament that "Congress is unwilling to enact laws to significantly curtail the deadly firearms that are now available on the streets." To effectively fight crime, they say, "Our Congress needs to enact meaningful gun-control legislation at the federal level that applies to every state and locality."

The reason many of those "deadly firearms" are on the streets and being used in crimes (rather than defending the innocent from them) is that the law-abiding find it tougher to get firearms because of already existing gun-control legislation. And worse, because criminals are not real big on following laws to begin with, the statutes don't prevent them from acquiring weapons. In short, people not prone to killing others go unheeled, while thugs carry and, tragically, use firearms.

Most people around this issue with even an inkling of respect for the Second Amendment already know these facts. Outlaw guns, goes the saying, and only outlaws will have guns. What many do not realize, however, is that the war on crime used as the pretext for banning guns results directly from the war on drugs.

Take it back to the subject of gun violence. From the earliest days of drug prohibition (1914), thugs and organized crime were drawn into the trade – just as they were when alcohol was made illegal in the 1920s. And just as the liquor trade during the Ignoble Experiment, the illegal drug trade remains fraught with violence and murder.

As I explain in my new book, "Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America," gang crime flourishes under drug prohibition, as it creates all the right incentives, market and legal factors for thugs to prosper. And their bloody effects are devastating. Earlier this year, Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton blamed street gangs, whose activity is currently tied almost inextricably to the drug trade, for more than half of L.A.'s annual homicide tally.

It's been this way for decades now. During the 1980s, the activity of Colombian cocaine gangs in Florida made shoot-outs and images of blood-red sidewalks almost nightly fodder for television news.

More than fodder for anchormen and journalists, however, it was also, and more ominously for gun supporters, fodder for anti-gun politicians and activists, who stepped in to propose the most unobvious solution to the problem. Scrap the assault weapons, they said, which was truly a curious tactic because even the government acknowledged that violence was only a symptom of the real problem – the underground market created by drug prohibition.

Under prohibition, notes a 1989 U.S. attorney general report, "the normal commercial concept of contracts, in which disputes are adjudicated by an impartial judiciary and restitution is almost always of a financial nature, is twisted ... into a system where the rule of law is replaced by the threat of violence." In other words, the illicit nature of the trade drives the crime. The real culprit is the law itself.

By and large, it's not the student potheads who threaten and shoot others. It's not the weekend coke sniffers who have any intention of shooting folks. Rather, as criminologist Scott Decker showed in a 1995 study using Justice Department numbers, the people in the drug biz who pack heat with deadly intention are usually dealers – the thugs.

The unobviousness of the gun-grabbers' solution is really seen here: Drug dealers are already breaking laws for which there are tremendous legal repercussions: confiscation of property, lengthy mandatory jail time, etc. What makes these people think dealers will be observant of gun laws? Maybe they're on something.

Conservatives who agreed with Reagan and Bush's drug-war crackdown tactics (and always complained Clinton didn't do enough) got bitten in the pants by the policy because law enforcement crackdowns did little but amplify gang violence. Not only did enforcement efforts drive gangs onto each other's turf with bloody consequences, showdowns with police got more desperate and violent as well.

As I point out in "Bad Trip," as the drug war has intensified over the decades, police and dopers have entered a Cold War-like arms race in which one side is forever trying to outgun and overpower the other. Since police are both obstacles to payday and bringers of punishment, dopers do what they must to resist them – and that means more firepower. So as violence increased, so did the calls for banning the guns we conservatives were vociferously arguing we had a Second Amendment right to keep and bear.

We didn't want thugs to have and use them, obviously, but using guns to shoot cops, rivals and innocent bystanders was already illegal. That only left banning the guns of the law-abiding in a dragnet approach to the problem. Little did we realize the seeds for banning firearms were buried in our own misguided call for drug prohibition. In trying to jail the dealers, we were feeding the Brady beast.

Much of the answer to the problem of gun violence lies in respecting all of the Constitution as much as we respect the Second Amendment. Like 90 percent of what government does today, the national charter provides no warrant for drug prohibition. But by providing an excuse for one abrogation, we've allowed the abrogation of all – especially the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment in particular.

It comes down to a simple reality: As long as the drug trade is illegal, prohibition will foster and exacerbate crime and violence. And as long as it does that, gun-control fanatics and vote-hungry politicians will be able to leverage the situation to undermine our right to keep and bear arms.

Take the laws away, and you'll see a lot more drug abuse, more access to drugs by children in their own homes, etc. I don't want to clean up that mess.

Although you sort of have the right idea, you've carried it to an illogical extreme..

The answer is to CHANGE the laws..
Firstly, authorizing medical use without ending up with federal charges against you..
Although there are exceptions, bad apples in the medical community, the vast majority of doctors and nurses will use many of those drugs properly and effectively.

Secondly, licensing and taxation..
Even with requirements for a license to buy and sell, and a federal tax equal to that on alcohol, prices would be much lower than street prices are now..
No profit motive, no crime.. affordable prices, no crime.. medical supervision, no crime..

I could spend a couple days of my time researching to prove the point, digging up all the stuff I've read over the years, but I don't really want to waste my time..

There will always be some abuse of drugs just as there is of alcohol.. You can't change human nature..
But prior to prohibition, the prohibition movement was actually succeeding in changing america's drinking habits through education and information campaigns..
Ever heard of "taking the pledge"? That was the prohibition movement.. It was working..
When prohibition passed, all of their good work went to hell in a handcart.. We ended up with organized crime, and illegal booze everywhere, as most citizens, normally law abiding, virtually "looked the other way" when it came to enforcing prohibition, and even refused to convict most bootleggers.. ( jury nullification at it's best )

By the way, prohibition was responsible for the increased popularity of marijuana as a recreational drug of choice.. replacing the prohibited alcohol...
As did other drugs, as a replacement for good old booze..

Prohibition also resulted in the 1934 Gun Act which put all those severe restrictions on the "Tommy Gun" and other automatic weapons, as well as the Sawed off Shotgun, or Coach Gun, one of the most popular personal weapons of the time.. ( Shotgun... The REAL "Gun that Won the West".. )
So, like Mr. Miller says, it is laws like the present Drug laws that encourage criminal activities in search of profit.. That end up taking away YOUR GUN RIGHTS.

I'm not calling for outright legalization of all drugs..
I'm just calling for some common sense..
Morphine, even Heroin, can be used medically, but is so highly restricted, and the penalties for "perceived" over-prescribing so severe, that doctors are afraid to simply relieve the pain of TERMINAL patients..
Cannabis, or marijuana, which cannot be shown to EVER have killed Anyone through overdose, has less effect on brain cells than alcohol, and benefits cancer patients by decreasing nausea and increasing appetite, is completely prohibited for use and cannot be prescribed by doctors as a medicinal drug..

Additionally, Hemp is a cash crop that cannot even be grown in this country..
Agricultural Hemp wouldn't get a FLY HIGH..

Drugs are not bad..
Let me say that again..
DRUGS ARE NOT BAD.. DRUGS ARE NOT EVIL...

Drugs are used to make people's lives better, to cure disease, ease pain, correct conditions, etc., etc., etc..
It is the ABUSE of drugs that is bad..
Even Alcohol, when used in moderation and with discretion, is beneficial.. Belladonna, a known poison, is used medicinally, and is a beneficial muscle relaxant..
Castor oil is made from Mung Beans, the basis for Ricin..

Laws don't keep people from taking drugs..
Americans take tons of drugs every day.. Even children are doped up on a form of Methamphetamine, RITALIN..
It's personal responsibility that is required, not laws..
When conjoined with some medical supervision or advice, most if not all of the drugs we spend Billions on prohibiting, could be handled by Free Americans with responsible attitudes..

Lastly, some hard core opinion..
While I have stated above I am willing to accept some regulation in place of restriction and prohibition,...

Personally, I would legalize (decriminalize) all drugs..
I understand there would be a sudden upsurge in drug overdoses and related deaths.. But it would soon come back down and level off at a fairly low rate..
And those that die?
Obviously, they had non-survival traits.. Probably all Liberals and socialists, and we're well rid of them..
I'd rather they kill themselves off than my having to do it, some night in my home, defending my family..
With a gun made illegal by a stupid War on Drugs..

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