🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <38jdm9$s9u@crchh518.bnr.ca>, tomg@bnr.ca (Tom G) wrote:

>Alchohol & especially Nicotine consumption has been shown to go down 
>as the price goes up.

Up to a point.  Canada had to lower their taxes on cigarettes because
smuggling became a problem.  People who *really* want something will get
it, legally or not.

>Alchohol and Drugs are a completely different beast.  They can be cheaply
>made almost everywhere.  They are all derived from plants.  You cannot
>grow a gun or bullets.  

Alcohol and drugs are consumables.  If you turn off the supply, the
current stocks will eventually run out.  Guns are durable goods, they last
for a long time.  You can completely stop gun manufacture in this country
and eliminate all imports of guns and there will still be 200 million of
them floating around.

Bullets are, of course, consumables.  But if you use brass catchers then
you can reload your shells yourself.  It isn't illegal to buy lead, and
combustible propellants can be made from various sources.  You're not
going to outlaw nitrate fertilizer, are you?  This all requires expertise
which many people lack, but chopping a stolen car into its component
pieces also requires expertise, but there isn't a shortage of chop shops
in this country.  Besides, bullets are small enough to be smuggled almost
as easily as drugs.

>Deal with handguns the way we deal with more deadly weapons like
>gernades, machine guns, etc.  They are effectively controlled.  

And they always have been effectively controlled.  You've never been able
to go to K-Mart and buy hand grenades.  But see above.  Even if you
completely stop all gun manufacture and import, you've still got 200
million of them out there and you can be sure that the criminals aren't
going to turn their's in just because Uncle Sam tells them to.

                                ++Don Nash

Internet: D.Nash@utexas.edu     The University of Texas System
THEnet:   THENIC::DON           Office of Telcommunication Services