Good topic, seamus. While there is an element of preaching to the choir here, it's good to remind people of historical facts.
seamusTX wrote:The rate of gang-related crime went down after the end of Prohibition for reasons that had nothing to do with gun laws. The rate went up starting in the 1960s when the baby boomers reached young adulthood. At the same time, the use of illegal drugs became more widespread and market turf was worth fighting over. GCA 68 did nothing to slow that trend.
Quite a few of us have noticed that the correlation there is
prohibition. When the government outlaws something that has a strong market demand, the black market will step up to supply it. Whether it's liquor or a prescription pharmaceutical or a native plant species, someone will supply it. The cost of production increases with the risk, and the reduced competition increases the profit margin, making it more lucrative, right up to the point that people will use illegal force to keep or increase their market share. After all, they're already breaking the law, so what's one more?
ELB wrote:Even the Feds at that time recognized that citizens had the right to bear arms, even tommyguns and such. So the NFA did not ban them. Instead, it was a revenue act -- it placed a tax on them. Which of course has been warped into seizing Airsoft replicas, because with enough engineering one can make a fully-automatic weapon out of a brick...
Exactly. It's an interesting note in the history of Constitutional thinking: in 1918-1919, Congress knew they had no Constitutional authority to ban alcohol. So, they offered up the 18th Amendment, which was passed, then ratified, so then the Volstead Act could ban alcohol while passing Constitutional scrutiny. After a dozen+ years of disaster, the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th (and any legislation relying upon it), in 1933.
Just a year later, Congress recognized the same limitation, and knew they didn't have authority to ban guns or gun accessories, so they chose to tax them out of the marketplace. I've read (but not confirmed) that the $200 tax was chosen because it was a 100% tax on the selling price of a Thompson. Congress built on this with the Gun Control Act of 1968, relying heavily on the now-perverted Interstate Commerce Clause to regulate sales. Still, it wasn't until 1986, just two years short of the Constitution's bicentennial, that they became bold enough to impose an actual gun ban, for the first time ever (civilian ownership or transfer of machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986). Following on the success of the Hughes Amendment, the Assault Weapons (and standard capacity magazine) Ban passed in 1994.
The first drug laws were similar: the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was a consumer safety law that required labeling of preparations containing narcotics and opiates. The 1914 Harrison Narcotics Tax Act required registration and taxation of opium and coca-based products, but did not ban them. Same for the Marihuana {
sic} Tax Act of 1937. The registration and taxation requirements amounted to an outright ban, just like the 1986 machine gun ban has priced automatics out of the reach of all but speculators and well-heeled enthusiasts.
By the time the Controlled Substances Act was passed in 1970 (completely banning certain substances; again, with no Constitutional authority), the underground market was already in place and thriving. Attempts to shut it down made it more lucrative, and more violent as a direct result.
If Congress outlawed caffeine, which relies on the imported fruit of a natural plant, how long do you think it would be before the coffee wars turned violent? Given what I know about coffee addicts (I'm the son of one and married to one), I'd give it about 8 hours before there was a knife at someone's throat, demanding they hand over the beans.
Sorry for the side-rant, but I'm trying to make clear the parallels at work here: government prohibition or disruption of the free market
always creates a black market and more violence. Doesn't matter if it's coffee, coca, kush, or carbines.
