Talk to Us
Your logic is slipping on this one Kate. Outlawing and prohibitions ALWAYS increase the price of the good being prohibited as well as the demand for the good. The unfortunate sideresult is that when a good is outlawed, quality control slips because there is no legal recourse available for penalizing those who would supply faulty products. Bathtub Gin, smack cut with ratpoison, moonshine made in car radiators, saturday night specials that explode in your hand; all the result of prohibiting things that people, left to their own devices, might or might not want.
Drinking increased during prohibition, drug use increased markedly after the passage of the Harrison act and has continued to increase with the War on Drugs ( more properly considered as non market subsidies for agricultural products from Columbia and Afghanistan ). Sexualized behaviour expands everytime someone tries to implement forced abstinence. Sales of cigarettes from "sovereign" nations to the USA have increased nicely with the increase in the sintaxes on cigs.
It's not bizarre, it's normal human behaviour; make a big deal out of something and it becomes "attractive" and then "mandatory." Raise the price on something beyond its natural equilibrium price and consumers will direct effort to finding a lower priced source. Make using/consuming something criminal and folks will have to deal with criminals to get that something. And they will have to both pay the higher price and absorb the higher risk of shoddy product.
No matter what it is in this world, when one group decides to prohibit everyone else from having, enjoying, using something, you can be guaranteed that many of that "everyone else" group will ignore, circumvent or undermine the prohibition statutes.
Uh... I thought that's what I meant. That I'd be for banning them if I didn't think only the assholes would have them.
I was addressing the "bizarre" which the described behaviour is most definitely not. Hating guns is as irrational as hating any other tool. Might as well hate chain saws, or swiss army knives or Stanley Hand Planes. Although one would not know it from the TV infotainment shows, deaths by gun have declined pretty severely in the USA and the decline is most noticeable in those states that have instituted concealed carry laws. Even the sadness at the Indian Reservation might have been nipped if the security guard at the school had been armed with more than a donut.
10 little indians on one hand, one alert but doomed black child on the other hand and a 15 year PVS on the third hand. I am so glad that irony is dead too.
Well, actually, I do hate my Dremel tool (bad association) and suspect my carpet steamer is trying to kill me, but I get your point (all three of them ;>).
Are we really going to equip security guards with semi-automatics, however, because one kid in one school every 5 years brings a gun to school?
Yes, I realize the "every five years" is an exaggeration. We've had several incidents of guns/not violence in the schools here in recent weeks. But normalizing guns into the schools - whether with kids bringing them, security guards sporting them at entryways, and God forbid, teachers packing heat seems like the wrong way to go.
Hell, I don't much want anyone carrying cell phones in schools let alone guns. But on that point, I'm just cranky.
Given the very high quality of most rent-a-cops, equipping them with semi automatics is as good a way as any to guarantee a steady supply of semi automatics to those deserving students who do not yet possess one. But, the State is supposed to have the Monopoly on the use of Force ( which is why we have a second amendment btw to guarantee that that monopoly is counterbalanced ), so maybe the best bet is to use the National Guard or the Reserves as High Quality Crossing Guards instead.
Or they could just follow the Florida method and pre-Taser any student they deem potentially intelligent.
Commenting by HaloScan
