It’s time for a little foray into libertarianism, while George Bush and Afghan President Karzai discuss the explosion of Afghan opium production.

In the article excerpted below, a libertarian on LewRockwell.com writes about the inconsistency of liberals and conservatives on the issues of guns and drugs: “Many opponents of gun control support the war on drugs, and many critics and reformers of America’s drug laws tend to believe in gun control. Conservatives tend to fall into the first category and liberals into the second.”

The remainder of the article is a nice introduction to the danger to a free society caused when the government has to create a nation of snitches to ferret out those who commit victimless crimes. Neighbors turn in neighbors, employers urine test everybody, courts allow the police to commit incredible intrusions, etc, and all for essentially very very little payback to society. We become more like the old Soviet Union, and it’s all for nearly nothing.

The more we prohibit drugs, the more valuable the black market becomes. It’s a vicious and never ending cycle. It’s almost as if the black marketeers control the government and are guaranteeing that the drug laws will remain irrational, the better to keep profits astronomical.

We CAN get rational, people. I’ll tell of my own journey to the freedom side of the concealed carry debate.

Even though I have always owned guns, I USED to oppose concealed carry laws. But then I read the reports of the lack of widespread problems in jurisdictions that passed concealed carry bills. Being a rational person, quite susceptible to reasoned debate, I concluded that I did not have a good public safety argument for opposing concealed carry. If I wanted to oppose concealed carry in the face of no evidence of real harm to society, I was just being an irrational extremist on the issue. And so I changed my mind and voted FOR Missouri’s concealed carry law.

Read the article below and then consider the basis of your opposition to the dual freedom issues of gun ownership and recreational drug use. (I don’t use drugs or drink, by the way. I’m a coffee-totaller).

Gun Control and the War on Drugs by Anthony Gregory
Creating spies and destroying civil liberties

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Possession laws are very difficult to enforce in a free society. Since no one’s rights are being violated when someone owns a banned gun or smokes marijuana, there is no victim to report these “crimes” to the police and little natural incentive for third parties to report their neighbors to the authorities. Instead, the police have to actively search for the offenders, an approach that predictably leads to the destruction of other civil liberties, such as rights to privacy and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. Wiretaps, random searches and roadblocks, and spying become common.

Since few people are naturally willing to turn in their neighbors for victimless activity, the government has to create perverse incentives for people to turn in lawbreakers. The drug war and war on the Second Amendment have inspired the government to pressure teachers and pediatricians to ask children about what drugs or guns their parents might have. Drug and gun offenders are also encouraged to testify against other offenders %u2013 often-times ones who committed much more minor offenses %u2013 in exchange for lowered prison sentences. This often leads to small-time offenders getting longer sentences than the big-time dealers. Such government programs to incite tattle-telling belong in history-book chapters about the Soviet Union, but they have no place in a free society.

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