As a nation, we're so close to ending the war on drugs. We're so close to abandoning a century's worth of misguided policies that threw people in jail for victimless crimes and vilified those who needed medical care more than a police baton across the skull. We're so near abandoning the aforementioned policies, all of which saw the inevitable and inequitable application of 'justice' directed disproportionately at marginalized, immigrant, and impoverished populations. We're so close to realizing that, more often than not, the over-policing invited by the drug wars resulted in more harm to over-policed communities than the drugs themselves.
We. Are. So. Close.
Yet so many of you seem eager to pick things right back up again. To press for policies that will allow the war on guns to pick right up where the war on drugs left off.
We don't need to question what an enormous federal gun overhaul will look like in this country. We already know because we already have the evidence provided by every previous prohibition. Thousands, possibly millions will be jailed for victimless crimes. The sort of funding that turns American law enforcement into literal armies will continue to flow. And, inevitably, the strong arm of law enforcement will continue to batter the communities that always suffer the most from over-policing.
I hate to break it to you but, if history shows us anything, sweeping gun control won't impact the lily white people like me- those most regularly responsible for school shootings. It'll impact the same folks as always, for such is the reality of systemic racism.
History also shows us that in almost every instance, the courts rule in favor of officers when they make a deadly mistake in the line of duty, no matter how egregious that mistake. Meanwhile, the same officer who could shoot you and get off scot-free has no legal obligation to get shot FOR YOU. Time and time again the courts uphold officers who save themselves and let you die. They don't even lose their jobs.
Is this really what you want?
I just find it very disappointing. We libertarians have opposed the war on drugs all along. Even as that war was literally the most bipartisan thing in living American memory, we stubbornly stood up to it. And now that folks are FINALLY realizing we were right all along while decades of Democrats and Republicans were misguided, well, it doesn't matter, because now the war on guns will just step right in and fill its place.
Oh well. What's another decade or five of statist tyranny? It's only failed every time. Maybe it'll play out differently now and make us safe this go around.