Restricting Gun Rights.
It's Like Trying to Restrict Booze!
By Ralph Weller
GunNewsDaily.com
October, 2006
Sometimes it doesn't make sense. After all these years of increasing gun ownership restrictions I still can't, no matter how hard I try, figure out the logic of it all. Listening to both sides of the story comes easy. But no matter how I crunch the logic, it never comes out in favor of reducing gun rights.
I've come to the conclusion that gun-banners at the state and federal level really don't believe their own rhetoric. It's all about politics, building alliances and feeding the money supply. The most notorious has got to be the lawyer lobby. After all, most of our politicians are lawyers by trade. The more criminals laws they can put on the books, the more business they give their lawyer buddies. But that doesn't seem to hold water in all cases. It's all about money, not safety.
It the anti-gun types legislated alcohol the same as guns, I would almost believe their sincerity when it came to gun restrictions.
Take California for instance. According to recent statistical data from the National Traffic Highway Safety Administration there were 1719 alcohol related traffic fatalities in California in 2005. That's almost an 11% increase since 2001. That number doesn't include fatalities while under the influence of legal or illegal drugs. But that's nothing. Nationally, over 16,000 alcohol related traffic fatalities occur annually. Over 600,000 people are injured each year. Over 44,000 are severely injured to the point of being incapacitated for the rest of their lives. It is estimated it costs between 40 and 50 billion dollars annually in medical care and property damage. That's one trillion dollars over 20 years or so. The so-called 'gun problem' is dwarfed by the immensity of drunk driving.
You would think if the anti-gun politicians were so concerned about the deaths of innocent people, they would try and implement the same type of laws used to control guns. Doesn't it make sense to ban strong booze like whiskey and rum, simply because it takes relatively little to impair a driver? Say so long to Captain Morgan. Wouldn't it make sense to ban cheap 'Saturday Night Drinks' like wine coolers and cheap jug wine? After all, if it works for guns, wouldn't it work for booze as well? You can kiss your Thunderbird wine good-bye. C'mon, we're talking about the lives of innocent people and children here!
Wouldn't it make sense to register drinkers? How about limiting purchases to one bottle of booze or two six packs a month? Don't you think it would be wise to require people who drink to obtain a booze license that would require 8 to 16 hours of education and a test on the proper management of alcohol? Shouldn't we set up an agency to make sure the alcohol is both safe and does what it advertises it will do? It could be modeled after California's very successful safe gun testing procedures.
I know, the anti-gun politicians will say, 'yah but guns are designed to kill people, booze isn't.' Sure, and I suppose the entire family killed by a drunk driver are less dead than if they were killed by a crazed murderer. Besides, 76 million Americans own guns and I don't see them all out there shooting one another. In fact, I don't know that I have ever seen anyone shoot someone else outside of the military. But, I've seen my share of drunk drivers and alcohol related accidents. Too many of them.
I think it's time Democrats put their 'nanny state' beliefs to the ultimate test. Someone needs to stand up for the cola and coffee drinkers of the world and put drunk drivers behind bars for a long time.
I think it's time we severely restrict access to alcoholic beverages by placing limits on how much can be purchased, what kind of alcohol can be purchased and, to be certain that poor people can't drink and drive, we need to ban cheap alcohol. Drinking is a rich white man's sport. We can't have just any poor minority buying cheap booze and causing problems on the road.
Then we need to tax alcohol more so we can take care of all these old alcoholics getting treated on the taxpayer's dime. Why should non-drinkers pay the price?
But, we most definitely can start with the easy stuff like restrict how much can be purchased by each individual. How much booze do you need for crying out loud? Isn't it worth it if we get just one drunk driver off the road or save one life?
And last, as a good starting point, we need to use taxpayer's money and have a booze buyback in each major city. And we need to launch the booze buyback program in Washington D.C. No, it's not symbolic to start with D.C. It makes sense because D.C. has the highest per capita rate of DUI injury accidents in the country.... Oh my. I think I just figured out why politicians will never restrict booze.
I've got a headache. Someone pass me a beer.
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