Gun control advocates argue that if we place more restrictions on the lawful purchase of firearms, it will somehow impact criminals. I think the argument is basically that it will create a trickle-down effect, where the fewer guns in lawful hands, the fewer guns there are for the bad guys to obtain, or something.
Which is kind of a troubling proposition, because it starts with us being effectively disarmed before the bad guys are. Even if you’re willing to give up your guns someday, the idea of being powerless in the face of criminals who are still armed just isn’t going to sell the idea to a lot of people.
Then there’s the problem that it assumes the only way criminals can get guns is if law-abiding folks can have them.
Yet an arrest in Indiana recently is just one of many we see regularly that provides some evidence that this is a fool’s belief.
According to a press release, troopers pulled a car over for speeding near Fremont just before 8 p.m. During the traffic stop, the odor of marijuana was detected, and a probable cause search of the car took place.
The search turned up several packages of marijuana, as well as a handgun and a rifle. Both guns had been reported stolen.
“But Tom, those guns were stolen, which fits what you’re arguing the gun grabbers believe,” someone might argue.
However, it’s not the presence of guns so much that I want to call attention to. I want to talk about the marijuana.
See, while marijuana is legal to some degree or another in a lot of states, Indiana isn’t one of them. You can’t have it for recreational or medicinal use. It’s banned across the board.
Yet somehow, these yahoos allegedly had “several packages” of it.
If gun laws stop criminals from getting guns from any and all sources in time, then why hasn’t that worked with drugs? Marijuana isn’t restricted in Indiana; it’s outright illegal. There’s no way to lawfully get it, and yet people get that.
And don’t try to tell me that it being legal in some other places has anything to do with it, because we also know that harder drugs are readily available to people, too, and I mean stuff that’s not legal anywhere. Then we have the opioids that might be legal with a prescription, but are so heavily regulated that they can’t account for the totality of the issues we’re seeing with them, so some have to be entering the country illegally.
Where there’s a demand, there will be a supply so long as the demanded product exists. If it doesn’t exist, someone will invent it. That doesn’t apply just to lawful trade, either.
If every firearm in this country disappeared tomorrow, the criminals would still get guns. Someone somewhere would find a way to provide a supply to them. They’d have guns aplenty.
We’ve seen this in Europe, where there’s a booming market for converting non-firing replicas into working guns for criminals, well before the popularity of 3D printing for firearm parts.
The “logic” of restricting lawful gun ownership to eventually get to criminals crumbles when you look at how many illegal goods move into this country each day. Guns don’t only because there’s no market for imported firearms.
Drugs do. Full-auto switches do. A host of other things do, and that’s why you’re not going to just wish them away.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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