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The Drug
War--Bad for America and the Second Amendment Many otherwise sensible Americans blindly favor
the war against drugs. I believe they have been brainwashed into this mindset,
and that the drug war is providing crucial support to anti-gun fanatics. The public's Pavlovian anti-drug response is
precisely what socialists, police statists, authoritarians, and elitists want.
It dovetails perfectly with their larger aim-a highly controlled society, the
desire for which is generally camouflaged as altruism, public safety, or general
welfare. Police officials participate in the "drug
war" because fighting it requires an ever-expanding budget, more manpower,
more cars, more helicopters, more training, more legal power, more and better
equipment, etc. This enlarges their personal fiefdoms and their sense of
self-importance, the desire for which is a regrettably common human trait. No
doubt many police officials and officers are convinced that the drug war is
righteous. But none could honestly say that it will halt--or even significantly
diminish-illegal drug sales or use. The drug war will never be won because (1)
drugs are incredibly easy to smuggle and use, and (2) a large percentage of
humans occasionally desire-for recreation, mental stimulation, metaphysical
experimentation, religious ritual, or simple mental escape-an altered state of
perception or consciousness. This has been true throughout history. Threats of
arrest, torture, prison, bankruptcy-none have ever, or will ever, stop humans
from using drugs. When something in high demand is difficult to
obtain, its value increases. Thus Prohibition made possible huge profits in
ethyl alcohol-a consciousness-altering drug-and provided an unprecedented boost
to organized crime in the twenties and thirties. The drug war is Prohibition
squared, and the immense, immediate, tax-free profits made by supplying drugs
has lured tens of thousands of young men and women into a life of crime. Additionally, the drug war has put untold
thousands of otherwise harmless citizens into jail or prison for drug use,
thereby damaging or ruining their lives. It has pressured untold thousands of
drug addicts-by making the price of a drug habit artificially high-into becoming
thieves, robbers, embezzlers, burglars, and even murderers. The flood of drug
money has corrupted cops, politicians, judges, and entire local, state, and
national governments. The drug war has made every citizen a suspect
of the government, because drug users exist in every economic level and in every
category of age, race, occupation, and religion. It has turned children into
snitches against parents and family, providing a pretext for governmental prying
into our personal lives and finances. It has generated search warrants based on
flimsy hearsay, or paid-for "information", and warrants extended to
all things and places because drugs are easy to hide. These warrants have led to
government home invasions in which innocent citizens are terrorized, humiliated,
and sometimes shot to death. It has spawned terrifying forfeiture laws, in which
property is seized and sold without due process, and-unbelievably-without the
owner having committed any crime. It has led to police and enforcement agencies
using military training, equipment, and tactics, which has caused these public
employees to see their role as a military one-attack and destroy rather than
serve and protect. Finally, the drug war it has wasted billions
and billions of dollars that could have been spent in countless ways to make our
country better. I believe the foregoing has had two powerful
negative effects on the right to keep and bear arms. First, the drug war is a perfect vehicle for
demonizing guns and gun owners. Drug smuggling and dealing occurs everywhere,
all the time, and drug busts involve exciting action, large amounts of money,
and severe consequences. These are ideal elements for a daily "news"
spectacle depicting criminals who commonly use firearms to guard their product,
profits, turf, and lives. Consequently, anti-gun fanatics are provided an excuse
for more gun control-and the heavily propagandized public swallows it. The news media are major participants in this
propagandizing. Drug bust stories usually include a report on what drugs and
guns were seized. Always drugs and guns, drugs and guns, a mantra that has
firmly implanted in the public mind a link between two completely different
things: "evil" illegal drugs and useful legal guns. Of
course most drug suspects also own cars, knives, rope, blunt instruments, tools,
and other legal items used in committing crimes, but the news media focuses on
guns. Socialists and other control-obsessed public
servants also participate in the propaganda. The idiotic phrase "getting
guns and drugs off the street" is standard fare for demagogic politicians,
law enforcement officials, and so-called community leaders. It reinforces the
image of guns as tools of criminals, and by inference all gun owners are
criminals-not simply good citizens who wish to protect their lives, property,
and freedom. The transference and blurring of
"drugs" and "drug dealers" into "guns" and
"gun dealers" as public enemies is ongoing. Consider these real-life
drug/gun counterparts: drug-free school zone/gun free school zone; zero
tolerance for drugs /zero tolerance for guns; drug dealer crackdown/ federal gun
dealer crackdown; SWAT drug raids/SWAT gun raids; lawsuits against legal tobacco
producers/lawsuits against legal gun manufacturers; media and government
demonization of drugs rather than drug abusers/media and government demonization
of guns rather than gun abusers. The drug war's second negative effect on gun
rights is the severe erosion of our other personal rights. The invasive,
oppressive laws and mechanisms created to fight this war have made parallel
attacks on the Second Amendment infinitely easier to accomplish socially,
politically, "legally", and physically. A society accustomed to
roadblock searches, bogus warrants, home invasions by law enforcement, hired
criminal snitches, "accidental" police executions, pointless drug
tests, property forfeiture, and random police surveillance by high-tech audio,
electronic, and visual devices is a society primed for curtailment or abrogation
of gun rights. The drug war will never be won. It is
impossible to physically interdict the drugs, and impossible to legislatively
eradicate the desire for them. The harder the government cracks down on drugs,
the higher drug profits soar, and the more drug dealers earn. Socialists,
civilian disarmament fanatics, and controlling politicians know this but will
never admit it. Why should they when this phony war provides everything they
want? The solution is to legalize drugs for adults.
This will make them cheap, instantly eliminating all crimes associated
with drug dealing and drug use, and all the government's excuses for its
tyrannical abuses. If necessary, re-classify drug addiction as a
"disease" and deal with it on that level. If you consider drug
legalization "immoral", then you must consider legal alcohol
immoral, because alcohol is a drug whose legal use is far more inimical to
society than all the rest combined. Suggestions: If you don't like drugs, don't use
them. If you don't like people who use drugs, don't associate with them. If you
don't want your children to use drugs, teach them not to. If they ask why, warn
them of the dangers. The drug war must end. It is destroying
America's social framework and our personal rights-including the right to keep
and bear arms-more quickly and surely than any realistic amount of drug use ever
could. For myself, I prefer a free country in which a small percentage of people
use drugs to the tyranny of a police state. [This article originally appeared
in the October 1999 issue of Handguns Magazine] KABA Director's Note: Mr. Puckett
is a NO COMPROMISE AMERICAN running a POWERFUL organization for freedom.
If you have not yet looked into the WONDERFUL MEDIA BLITZ Mr. Puckett is
conducting through Citizens of
America, PLEASE GO LOOK. His organization is one key SOLUTION to the
media bias in our society regarding the TRUTH about guns. Not only do I
deeply appreciate, respect, and wholeheartedly believe in the COA mission, I
have come to know Mr. Puckett as a Brother of Americans I respect and REVERE
deeply. ~~ Angel Shamaya, [email protected]
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