Prohibition. You remember Prohibition. Demon Rum was
destroying America, ruining lives, wrecking families. Wasn’t just plain ole
rum. Nope, had to be Demon Rum. Demonize rum to make it seem worse than
reality. So said a vocal minority. Squeaky wheels. To save America we had to
ban the alcoholic beverage.
One by one the loudest noises bent states to their way of
thinking. A Constitutional amendment written, and soon the War on Booze was the
law of the land. They didn’t call it that, but that’s what it was.
People woke up one day to find that a freedom they had taken
for granted had been rescinded by fiat. And by this I don’t mean junk cars.
Naturally, when faced with such a rule, folks still wanted
to drink. Once confounded with stupid
rules who isn’t tempted to run contrary to them?
Breweries, distilleries, wineries shut down. Taverns closed.
Stores ceased the sale of alcoholic beverages. Local cops and Feds closed down the
occasional illegal seller or smuggler. Supply dried up. Demand however remained
inelastic. Thus, the price of alcoholic beverage rose. Econ 101.
The profit motive is a powerful thing. The most enterprising
merchants on earth, criminals found a need and filled it. Monstrously powerful,
wealthy criminal organizations grew out of this War on Booze. These were folks
who liked money and power more than rules, mobsters and politicians, crooked
cops, and a bunch of wannabees. They
brought booze into the country by the boatload and distributed it with remarkable
efficiency. And people drank more than they did when it was legal. All of this
is human nature.
Some people found themselves getting killed by the dark side
of this phenomenon. All manner of murder and mayhem was the order of the day. And
the mobsters who did these murders grew most wealthy and most powerful and they
shared the wealth to corrupt the police and the politicians.
Some, like the Kennedy patriarchy, eventually gained a
degree of legitimacy and generations of political power, if not respectability.
The Chicago mobs bought the entire government of that state
and haven’t given it up to this day despite the routine arrest and conviction
of most every politician in the state.
Prohibition was eventually repealed, but we the people have
been paying the price for the unintended consequences of the War on Booze ever
since. Because the criminals who had prospered from delivering booze had lost
their market, so they simply shifted to a new line of work. Drugs.
We didn’t really see much of a War on Drugs until the
wealthy white folks discovered cocaine. Heroin had been around, but mostly poor
and dark skinned people partook, and nobody cared about them. Marijuana was
around for ages, but garnered little attention. Then suddenly, people who
mattered were squandering tons of money on the white powder, and since money
attracts those same unseemly criminal types, a problem arose.
When the War on Drugs began in earnest, the price of cocaine
of course went further up, and so the criminals got nastier, and wealthier,
just like they did during Prohibition.
Laws against the transport, sale, and use of drugs in turn became
far more stringent. The actual use of such drugs hardly killed anybody, but the
driving of the commerce of drugs into the welcoming hands of the criminals
eventually got scads of people killed. The mothers in the ‘hood watched their
sons dying in the streets as the young men engaged in the commerce and competition
surrounding drugs. The mothers blamed it on crack cocaine, and they demanded
more stringent laws. Demon Crack Cocaine. It’s worse than the other, so go
after it.
Later, when those more stringent laws landed most of a
generation of young men from the ‘hood in prison, these same mothers complained
that the laws were institutional racism designed to hurt the young men. This left
the do-gooders who had listened to the mothers and wrote the laws to please
them shaking their heads in frustration. And the flow of drugs into the country
continued unabated.
Massive wealthy organizations that supplied the drugs
corrupted many of the politicians just like the mob did during Prohibition.
Some things never change. Media
generated public outcry over the rising tide of murder in the ‘hood led to the
laws becoming even more harsh. Mandatory sentencing for drug possession and
sale put crowds of non-violent offenders into prisons already crowded by the
violent vermin that had turned the ‘hood into a war zone in order to sell those
drugs.
The non-violent folks had been handed harsh sentences, in
order to win the War on Drugs. When there was no more room in the prisons,
their mandatory sentences meant they had to stay, so the violent criminals were
let loose to make room. Logic was carried to its illogical extreme. The
criminals resumed their work, and the murders added up, and pretty soon this
country looked pretty bad. Wow, we had way more murders than anybody else. What
a surprise.
The War on Drugs was a fail, but the murders continued to
annoy the populace. What, oh what shall we do? Murders in the ‘hood marred most
every night. Drive by shootings killed innocent babies as well as criminals and
annoyed the Chamber of Commerce. Something must be done.
The car most in favor for drive by shootings was the
Oldsmobile Cutlass. This was an established fact, but the Cutlass was a popular
seller, so they couldn’t ban it to stop drive by shootings. But wait……
Why not ban guns?
The reprobates who went around without conscience, killing
competitor and innocent alike, often used guns, didn’t they? Guns by their very
nature are bad, right? Everything we’ve ever been taught by listening to movie
stars, rock stars, and the 6 o’clock news tells us that guns are evil and the
cause of murder. That’s all they are good for…because my senator says so.
That’s why people keep voting for her.
Somebody came up with actual police statistics which stated
that although murder was rampant in the ‘hood, the rules telling the murderers
not to use guns didn’t work. Don’t listen to that reality. Guns scare us, so
therefore all the guns must go.
Many logical arguments arrived to debunk such irrational
fears, but did not assuage the ragged emotion. No argument to the contrary is
worth listening to, for emotion should rule over logic every time.
In spite of massive indoctrination intended to increase
people’s fear of guns, too many people, most of the people, didn’t want the ban
of guns. They had many reasons, some from logic and some also from emotion. Too
many people stood in the way of ridding us of the guns. Must change their
minds. Let’s demonize some guns. Heck it worked before.
If the gun looks like this…it must be a Demon Gun. Tell a
few lies. Tell a lot a lies. Tell them over and over again. Don’t even listen
to any argument from the other side. The other side are all idiots. Everyone
must think the same. Teach them to all think alike. The movie stars, the music
stars, the media, the schools. Everyone teach the same. Demon Gun. Because a
gun looks like this…
So one president got his law passed to rid us of dangerous
looking guns. For ten years the law had no effect of the criminal use of guns.
And when the law expired, again no change. But still some people harbored their
irrational fear of guns. So when one horrible man used a dangerous looking gun
to slaughter babies, the cry went out again. Let’s ban the guns. People knowing
nothing about guns became experts overnight, all arguing against gun ownership.
And the president saw the chance to disarm his subjects.
Ok. So let’s escalate the War on Guns. What do you suppose
will happen?
After decades of the War on Guns, every single law
restricting the law abiding people’s access or enjoyment of their firearm has
failed to stop criminals from their nightly chores. Clearly more laws are
needed to punish the good people for the crimes of the criminals. Now the
president wants to deny every law abiding citizen their right to firearms. Yet
he as actually assisted criminal access to firearms simply to make the law
abiding people look bad.
Well, lots and lots of nice people have guns. They like
them. I suppose similar to that alcohol
thing. Or even that marijuana thing. Maybe a hundred million citizens own guns.
Now most are nice folks who follow laws, so when you compel them to surrender
their guns for confiscation and destruction, lots will reluctantly comply. That
bunch that doesn’t follow laws, the killers, rapists, and thieves won’t of
course, but maybe someday it might filter down to them. The people who hate
guns don’t much like filter down economics, but they really love filter down
gun bans. Maybe eventually if they punish the innocent hard enough it will have
some effect on the criminal.
Some folks will simply forget to turn in their guns. Ya know
how you sometimes forget to do some things, like dentist appointments? The
government will have to crack down on them. That’s what prisons are for, ya
know. Fill the prisons with these miscreants, and others will be scared into
turning in their guns. Getting the neighbors to turn in their neighbors to the
government will become the new American way of life.
And if the prisons are too full, let loose some more murderers
and rapists. Like before. I’m sure they will behave. Maybe the president will
put them to work after they get out. He was a community organizer once, after
all. He says he supports the Second Amendment. He will need a well-regulated
militia to help keep order. Take those gang members, the murderers and such, give
them nice uniforms and three weeks of training, and put them to work ferreting
out the people’s guns. A constitutionally mandated militia. Who could argue
with that?
That bunch that still won’t turn in their guns will be a
problem. Probably need the military to smoke them out. We will need truckloads
of soldiers pulling onto your street in the dark of night, house to house
search for guns, families standing shivering in the streets while soldiers go
through their homes, smoke filling the air from when the tear gas set the
Smith’s house on fire. Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide. March dad
off in handcuffs to the concentration camps when the prisons are too full. Use
the militia if the soldiers refuse to shoot their own people.
Some citizens will fight back, because the guns will make
then do it. Kill a bunch of them because you have to. Martial law. Suspend the
Constitution. Total government control… for our own good of course. Win the War
on Guns. Make this a safer country.
Welcome to the future. I’m sure somebody will be happy about
this. It seems to be the plan.
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