 Voices For Freedom Read Columns
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© 2007 Daniel J. McLaughlin
If X Is Outlawed
If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. It is a self evident statement that has severe implications, implications that are very different than the trite meaning bestowed by gun control advocates. You could replace the word “guns” with hamburgers, blue jeans or mother’s day cards and it would be just as true.
Anything can be outlawed, and through the course of history, many people have been made into criminals, not because they hurt anyone or because they did something inherently wrong, but because they acted in a way that someone else didn’t approve of.
Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920’s and 30’s made outlaws out of millions of ordinary people who didn’t do anything other than drink a beverage, something that is not wrong, something that people had done for thousands of years. The fact that some other people decided to make a law against it did not make it wrong. It only made it illegal. It is a major source of conflict when something that is not inherently bad is made illegal. Good people were transformed into “bad people” by the whim of the politically powerful.
The same obvious truth holds for the criminalization of drug usage. Most users of recreational drugs do not do anything inherently wrong. They are, however, made into criminals by prohibition. The negative effects of drug prohibition are the same as those of the massively failed prohibition on alcohol. Many severe consequences exist today, including increased potency, higher likelihood of tainted product (deadly homemade drugs, like poisonous bathtub gin of old), encouragement of criminal gang activity and the increased abuse of government powers and citizens rights.
It is a fact of life that, if the formal market for a product is outlawed, a black market will arise to take it’s place. The former Soviet Union had, arguably, the most severe market conditions of any country. The official markets were controlled and access to many products was limited or non-existent. It has been estimated that up to 60% of their economic activity occurred in the black market. Even in prisons, there is an active market in drugs and contraband. People will find a way to get what they want. It has happened in every country, in every age, every time, for every item outlawed. It is the nature of human society.
In the case of outlawing guns, the implications are more serious. Even where all guns are outlawed, a thriving black market arises. The most serious problem is that the real criminals, the murders, the thieves, the thugs, will still have access to weapons. They will also recognize that all of their potential victims are unarmed and defenseless. In that case, criminals are aided by giving them a safer work environment. They become much bolder and more dangerous.
Reality bears that out. The cities with the strictest gun control laws have some of the worst records for violent crime. There is no reason to believe that citizens are safer because law abiding individuals are made defenseless.
The recent shooting at Virginia Tech is a tragedy, but one that we can learn from. Unfortunately, many people are taking the wrong lessons, calling for more gun control. Virginia Tech already had a ban on guns. All of the students and teachers were known to be defenseless. If there were people that carried guns and were trained to use them, it is very unlikely that 32 innocent people would have died. If Seung-Hui Cho thought that many students and teachers were armed and that he would likely be taken out before he could make his “statement”, he would have been much less likely to make that statement. Even distraught, unstable people factor in the risks involved.
Humans, by nature, seek their own best interests. When it happens in a free market, with the rights of each individual protected from abuse by others, that self interest benefits the whole society. It is the mutual benefit in trading that makes a society progress economically. Free markets result in harmony of the interests of the whole society, as long as fraud, coercion and violence are the only things that are outlawed.
Sometimes, people do bad things. Those people should be punished. Punishing all of society because of them is never acceptable. Preemptive punishment to prevent bad behavior is not a solution. Those approaches lead to friction between good people and the law. Bad law is the foremost cause of conflict in any society, and always has negative, unintended consequences.
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Daniel Mclaughlin
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