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Leftist gun grabbers, with many of us on the right, especially libertarians, who wish to legalize drugs, face a similar dilemma. That is, half measures, partial "progress" is worse than useless because they actually aggravate the problem which motivates both leftist and libertarians on their respective issues.

Legalizing some drugs like marijuana but not others, such as cocaine and heroin, leaves the profit motive intact, the addiction problem intact and the corruption unimpeded. Similarly, to tinker around the margins with gun control rather than confiscating all guns makes the situation worse because it simply renders the law-abiding more and more vulnerable to criminals who will continue to illegally possess and use weapons.

Even assuming that confiscation of all guns will greatly reduce mortality and putting aside the problem of the Second Amendment, there is no political will to confiscate all guns and so the left is reduced to half measures like reducing the size of magazines which only infuriate people who associate gun ownership with liberty and increase the mortality count. The left does not admit and cannot admit that it wants to confiscate all guns which must, of course, be their goal because it is the only rational solution from their point of view.

People on the right with a pesky libertarian streak (which I confess to), similarly are afraid to forthrightly maintain that all drugs, even the most pernicious, dangers and powerful drugs, should be legalized if the idea of taking the profit motive out of the drug business is to succeed. Both the left and the right find themselves flummoxed, the right by its inability to sell individual liberty and the left by its furtive yearning for the collective.

So we go on generation after generation at loggerheads on both issues confounded by our own rhetoric and, at least in the case of drugs, by our unwillingness to confront the reality of a war on drugs lost.

That’s all very true. But you forgot another similar problem, i.e., immigration. Half measures to deal with the problem have only made the problem all that worse. If the southern border were subject to total closure with shoot-to-kill enforcement tactics, it would end illegal immigration. Similarly, if the US simply abandoned border enforcement and granted work visas to all comers, the problem would be solved.

But here’s the thing I see........the half measures are taken because, they are, simply profitable. Opening the borders to all takers would result in the unemployment of tens of thousands of Border Patrol personnel, INS employees, etc. As well, it would end the underground economy in bribes and kick-backs of myriad sort to tens of thousands of government employees and their families. Same issue with drugs. Half measures have resulted in a “war on drugs” business economy.

So........in the final analysis, nothing ever gets fixed, it only becomes more broken. That result is having two peculiar effects. 1) Washington DC is declining in relevance to the denizens of fly-over country, and 2) the charade that these national elections are is becoming near cartoon-like, so much so that anymore, practically no one is paying attention. And that’s precisely why the Dems win! They got the buses and the welfare plantation and the unions and they vote for the donuts and coffee and free ride to the community center.

Good post!!

People on the right with a pesky libertarian streak (which I confess to), similarly are afraid to forthrightly maintain that all drugs, even the most pernicious, dangers and powerful drugs, should be legalized if the idea of taking the profit motive out of the drug business is to succeed. Both the left and the right find themselves flummoxed, the right by its inability to sell individual liberty and the left by its furtive yearning for the collective.

The legalization of all drugs brings a dangerous side effect. Depressed loners like this killer would "self-medicate" their mental pain with psychotropic chemicals that would/could cause even more irrational psychotic behavior than the legal prescription psychotropics he was on and off again consuming. IF the criminally insane were locked up before tragedy strikes (but AFTER they have committed offenses like his public terrorist act statements) then legal psychotropes and legal guns would not be an issue. But no one wants to go there, so everyone's liberties are abridged.