If the legalization of drugs reduces crime, why can't the same be said about the legalization of guns?Submitted 3 weeks ago by tigerjerusalem@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Please please PLEASE: this question is made from a place of pure curiosity, with no political biases intended. I’m asking because restrictions and prohibitions puts a pressure on the market since the demand never ceases, and someone interested in supply for that demand will do it for massive profits - no matter what. Wouldn’t it be the case for any product, be it drugs, alcohol and guns?
Drugs harm the user. Guns harm somebody else.
Guns are also pretty popular for suicide when available.
“Sometimes, we all get a little sad…”
Yes, and you can force someone to take drugs, we both know that’s not the point.
I feel like this question is based on a lack of understanding of what people mean when they say legalizing drugs reduces crime.
Legalizing drugs reduces the crime of drug possession simply because it is not a crime anymore. In exactly the same way, legalizing carrying a gun without a license reduces the crimes associated with carrying. That said, it does not necessarily reduce crime overall, especially without an increase in support for rehab and addiction services.
Portland, Oregon reduced the severity of possession crimes from a felony to a misdemeanor for schedule 1 and 2 drugs, and the result was a decrease in felonies, but an increase in misdemeanors proportional to the felony decrease, suggesting that overall arrests remained the same. While there was not a significant increase in crime overall, the growing popularity of fentanyl during that time did lead to an increase in deaths, and public opinion seemed to indicate that there was a change in the perception of public safety during that time even though the crime rate remained mostly stable. In my opinion, I think it probably had to do with an increase in the visible public consumption of drugs and the unpleasant realities that can come with that.
pdx.edu/…/psu-researchers-release-final-report-la…
A primary difference between drugs and guns is that drugs more often lead to the death or injury of the user while guns are more likely than drugs to lead to the death or injury of someone else. Furthermore, a gun enables the commission of a crime in that you can’t rob a liquor store with a joint, but you definitely can with a firearm.
That said, I live in an extremely gun friendly area and have carried both openly and concealed, yet the perception of “how safe is my neighborhood” seems to be swayed much more by the growing homeless/drug using population than the sight of a person with a gun on their hip does. I have never seen someone avert their gaze and pick up their pace for an open carrying person around here, but I see it all the time when they encounter a drug using homeless person. I know that is mostly anecdotal, but when paired with the data from Portland, I think it can be safely suggested that the perception of public safety has more to do with sights that make people uncomfortable over actual statistical crime data.
It is very possible to live in a place that is statistically safer, yet feels more dangerous, entirely due to the discomfort caused by witnessing human suffering, which is less of a factor when witnessing someone carrying a gun. Furthermore, decriminalizing drugs in one particular area can lead to an increase in drug users inhabiting that area, thus reducing the perception of public safety regardless of crime statistics.
Legalization of carrying a gun primarily leads to an increase in concealed carry, thus hiding the increased presence of guns from public view, and therefore leaving the perception of public safety unaltered. Concealed carry is more popular than open carry because it increases the tactical effectiveness of the firearm by not making you an obvious target of a criminal, so it is the preferred choice for most gun carriers, both legal and illegal. Contrastingly, it seems pretty hard to hide the fact that you’re totally zooted on fentanyl or methamphetamine.
Overall, I’d say that simple decriminalization does not have a significant effect on crime. Most drug users are not homeless or violent criminals, so they simply fly under the radar just like a concealed firearm carrier does. However, an increase in public intoxication or public discharge of a firearm does decrease the public perception of safety, regardless of actual statistical consequences, and politicians create a narrative based on that public opinion rather than using the true data about public harm.
I agree with almost all of your post but I have to say this about open carry.
I live in Texas . I occasionally see people open carry. If I see someone open carrying, I tend to avoid them.
It’s as stupid as seeing someone walking around with a sword or a big knife. You call yourself out and make yourself a target.
Everyone around you suddenly knows you have the power of life and death over them but have no idea what kind of person you are. That can produce fear, and at the very least, make some uncomfortable.
It’s also not a statement of strength. It is a statement of fear. I fear that those around me may do me harm, so I want to be able to protect myself from them and show them I have the power to do so.
It separates you from the people around you.
Conceal carry, great, no one gives a shit, but as soon as you open carry, you may as well have a flashing neon sign saying, “Look at me, look at me!”
It attracts all the wrong kind of attention.
I am not saying you fall in that group, I do not know you at all, but that has been my anecdotal experience in Texas
Hi fellow Texan!
You are totally right—my example was only based on the part of Texas I live in. The reaction in Austin or Dallas would be different than it is in more rural areas.
I honestly think there are very few reasons people should open carry. I’ve done so when I’ve been mostly in the wilderness and occasionally for a short stop at a business where it’s tolerated on the way, so the context in that moment is different than it would be in the middle of the city.
Concealed can be done comfortably pretty easily, and is much safer for many reasons. If you choose to carry, safety, legality, and context are of paramount importance.
That’s not what’s meant when it’s said that legalization reduces crime. Legalization reduces violent crimes like robbery, theft, and gang violence. It typically has the effect of reducing overall problematic drug use as well. When weed was legalized in Colorado (iirc) opioid abuse dropped.
Plus, if drugs are legalized fewer people die from laced drugs or dirty needles, taxes can be used to fund rehab and education programs, etc.
Prohibition only ever leads to a thriving black market and violent criminal behavior.
I think it depends a little on what you mean by legalization.
Decriminalization, as far as I’m aware, is all that has been seriously tried for hard drugs. That leaves the illegal industry in tact, and continues all the issues that can come with it. I am 100% behind the legalization of drugs, I just think that the real societal improvement comes with increased healthcare availability for addicts, such as needle exchanges, purity testing, and addiction recovery services.
Fully legalizing hard drugs comes with its own minefield, too. Cigarettes are powerfully addictive, and companies have exploited their legal status to make them ubiquitous. They intentionally market them to children and use product placement to ensure that smoking is seen as “cool”. I can only imagine how things would go if companies like that were in the methamphetamine business.
And to an extent, they are. I am part of the generation that was pumped full of Ritalin to “fix” attention issues in children, and many of those kids have experienced a continuation of the addictive behavior that was introduced to them in a doctors office. The intersection of capitalism and biochemical addiction is a gross industry of exploitation.
I am a recovering heroin addict (17 years clean), so I am no stranger to the problems of addiction, enforcement, and healthcare. I definitely believe that removing the prohibition on drugs is the first place to start if we want to improve the problem. I just also know how fundamentally powerful hard drugs can be, and without an accessible off ramp for addiction as well as available materials to stay safe while you’re addicted, the life problems that come with drug abuse are likely to continue in one form or another.
Guns have no purpose other than destruction.
Drugs feel good to eat.
I feel the addiction potential and effects on the body from certain drugs is pretty destructive, especially paired with freely being able to use and recommend them to other people.
On the other side of the coin people can buy guns for competition, hunting, historical preservation, studying the mechanics via dissasembly… Its not really all black and white even though i agree drugs probably have less destructive potential than guns when regulated
Guns feel good to shoot. See how easy it is to oversimplify?
No.
Shooting someone with marijuana is difficult.
In the USA we have an extrodinary abundance of guns and people who defend having a personal arsenal as ‘stopping a bad guy’.
Thing is that you exchange one black market for firearms for the ability for potentially anyone to kill at scale and range with little notice or chance to avert it. The ‘good guy with a gun’ theory only serves a trivial role when you create a situation where mass availability makes any unstable person with a will much more likely to have access to one
Problem is, the good guys with guns tend to leave their guns safely locked up at home, because being good guys they are responsible firearm owners.
That too, but usually when I think of the sort that use such slogans I picture the ones who think they need 3 handguns on them to got to Walmart.
That isn’t totally true, it’s just that we responsible guys with a gun keep it out of view and properly secured so that others are never aware of it. Ideally, nobody should know you’re carrying except for you.
The recent Twin Falls, Idaho shooting is a pretty good example of a “good guy with a gun” who stopped a “bad guy with a gun”.
It happens, it’s just rare.
Sometimes. You should look up the stats on gun ownership to who has their conceal carry license ratio, and I think now 28 States offer constitutional carry too aka permitless carry.
To temporarily take the side of gunphobes: Legalization reduces crime related to the buying, selling, and transportation of guns, but has little effect on the crimes with which guns are committed.
Eh, it would have little effect in the US, though only for a decade or three. Once a new generation came along that wouldn’t fetishize the pewpew too much, and give ‘em enough time to sell/dispose of grandpa’s guns, I’m sure gun crimes would fall to levels similar to like, Australia.
If drugs are legal, the parallel market for them ceases to exist. If you can buy a drug at a store, a shady dealer doesn’t need to fight for territory with the next guy over. This is a crime that ceases to be committed.
If a guy buys some weed and heads into a crowd, at most he can inconvenience some people with the smell.
If guns are legal and that same guy has a mental issue, that crowd can get shot. This is a crime that can more easily be committed by that legality.
And before armchair experts can come at me, just look at every other country where guns are not legal, and measure the amount of gun violence compared to that one where they are.
I would also add that legalizing light drugs like weed decreases interest in more harmful drugs like crack. This doesn’t work with guns.
Legalization itself doesn't do much. What mainly reduces crime is regulations. And just by legalizing something, you're applying existing regulations to it.
Legalizing drugs means that someone selling drugs now counts as a legal vendor and needs to play by the same rules. Legalizing sex work means that brothels need to apply labor laws. Minimum wages and all that stuff.
Guns aren't going away, whether they're legal or not. But when guns are legal to sell, you can require licenses, background checks, and other requirements which wouldn't exist if it was illegal. Maybe you even want gun ownership to be in some kind of database so you have a better idea whom to suspect when gun crime happens. You don't get that when guns are illegal.
So in my opinion, getting rid of guns isn't a solution. It'll just make the problem more invisible. You should instead strengthen your regulations regarding guns. And teach people some discipline with them. I hear too many stories about third parties acquiring guns that are just lying around loaded, or children and dogs accidentally killing people by discharging the gun. How can someone just get guns into a school building? You guys need to address those issues, not ownership itself. Banning guns is a panic button, not a solution. It means you're giving up and shoving the problem under the rug.
My country also has high gun ownership, yet we don't share your problems in that regard. So clearly legal gun ownership isn't the issue. It's about gun culture, discipline, and regulation. All of which can be addressed without banning guns. But they have to be addressed, the US needs to change things from the status quo.
Drugs don’t physically harm anyone other than the user, so if they are decriminalized it reduces crime (as using isn’t criminal) even if it increases use.
Decriminalization of guns would reduce arrests for illegal carrying but increase the rate of carrying and when a gun is used, or stolen, it will usually result in a crime. Because people aren’t just shooting at themselves, right?
The other part of drugs being illegal is that addicted users may resort to crime in order to continue the habit. Decriminalization or legalization makes those drugs less expensive (ideally), which means less incentive to commit adjacent crimes.
This is kind of an interesting thought experiment around laws in general. If you made guns illegal tomorrow you would certainly increase guns crimes because anyone who doesn’t give up their guns is now committing a crime. Similarly all sales of guns would now be illegal and the demand for illegal guns would go way up resulting in more black market trade.
But the framing of the question leads to that conclusion. If what you are actually after is something more akin to “if legalizing drugs decreases violent crime then shouldn’t legalizing guns also decrease violent crime?” This is more interesting in my opinion.
Now let’s assume for a second that legalizing drugs does decrease violent crime (I do believe there I’d research that supports this). What crime is reduced? It is likely that crime around the drug trade itself is what is mostly reduced: you do not have as much cartel, gang, mob, and other organized crime entities around who are committing much of the violent crime. Drug users themselves are probably committing less of the crime than the actual distribution as using drugs is often times not an inherently violent act.
For guns the gun itself is a tool of violence. You cannot use a gun without committing a violent act. Now not all violent acts are violent crime, as target practice is not exactly illegal, but it is still violent. If you make manufacturing of guns illegal less will be manufactured which means less will be in existence therefore there is inherently less access to tools of violence. I’m sure the drug smuggling trade would introduce more violence as it would increase drastically. However the increase there may be smaller than the decrease of just having less guns in the world.
I guess the key difference is that guns are a tool of violence much more frequently than the use of an illicit substance is most likely.
The difference is how they’re used. Drugs are mainly used recreationally, the crime is either in obtaining or making and selling the drugs. Weapons are mainly used as tools to commit crimes with, with a few exceptions for hunting, but most weapons like handguns aren’t very suitable for hunting anyway.
Estimates are around 8-12 billion rounds used in the U.S. annually. With 115,000-120,000 people being shot annually, that means the highest estimates of bullets being used on other people is around .0012%.
So I would have to conclude that people highly underestimate the amount guns are used recreationally in the U.S. The “few exceptions” are the 99+% usage.
I excluded ammunition for the military hoping it wouldn’t distort those numbers.
Note those afraid to comment, that means on average every American shoots 2000+ rounds before death. We know not everyone does. It means when you meet 3 people and 2 say they have never fired a round… Likely it means 1 has never, 1 fired 1-20 shots, and the last fired 100. Yet now of those 3 were the man who fired 10,000 shots that year who distorted the figures
It’s a crime to have drugs. It’s not a crime to have guns. When you make something that is a crime not a crime, that’s less crime.
The legalization of drugs usually come with a program that sets drug addiction as an health problem, and does not make it an ordinary good.
Also, I am not sure if the gun legalization would increase crime by itself. The laws made to allow the use of guns probably do more harm. Here (in France), guns are restricted but allowed in some conditions, and they aren’t much linked to crime. Also, what ever crime is punished far more if the offender had a weapon, which makes most criminals avoid weapons when they are not strictly needed…
What’s the question here? These are two factual questions. You assess them with data, not speculation. The truth of one is completely independent of the other.
They’re asking for conversation out of the speculation, not a submittable law proposal.
It’s a bad comparison. The better comparison would be murder by poisoning with drugs, which would indeed also be higher because of easier access.
what kind of logic is this?
Bad logic that’s not thinking it through. At least they’re asking for discussion, so just make sure your reply is employing better logic than face-value generic statements!
Australia’s legislation around guns might be of interest, as it pertains to this discussion.
If you want to understand guns, I’d recommend sociology not economics.
I’ve been around guns most of my life I just choose not to have them around anymore every time I’ve had one I’ve just had in my head what I considered close accidents mental lapses and I just decided it’s not for me. put guns in people’s hands that have that same capacity just results in tragedy
I actually agree with you in principle: both should be legal and regulated. The extent of legality and regulation needs to be decided according to the use value/danger/harm of the item in question. Guns are generally much more dangerous than “party” drugs and so need to have stricter regulations.
weapons are in a different class than other things. that being said lots of things are weapons and its really hard to limit them all. that being said some weapons are more destructive than others. would legalization of nuclear warheads reduce crime?
Not really comparable imo. More guns = more crime, if I’m not mistaken.
More guns equals more severe crimes, not necessarily more crime. It changes the nature of those who are willing to offend, not the number of people willing to offend. Not counting the act of resisting new laws as crime, anyways, otherwise every libertarian type that has a gun would immediately become a criminal in the gun ban situation. lol
It’s one of those “critique of pure reason” things. The “logic” here is informed by epidemiology, not hypotheticals or dialectics or anything like that, so those methods of discovery may not be effective in refuting such evidence. In reality it’s not as simple as legalize or don’t legalize as a binary issue - theres an entire policy framework which comes with those things.
Beautiful answer.
Simply put, the crime from drugs arises only from society criminalizing the supply. People want to have a good time and where there is a demand a supply follows. But the demand doesn’t go away because of the criminalization, just as you said. The substitute for illegal drugs (cocaine, heroin, …) are legal drugs (alcohol, nicotine, …). But as many users will tell you illegal drugs provide a whole different level of high. The substitute therefore is imperfect and we get to the situation we are at today.
Thinking about guns: Which demand do they satisfy? Security? Every nation on earth operates a police force that is trained in and tasked with upholing law and order (to which extend they do is a different debate). Therefore the average citizen does not need a weapon for self-defense. Skillfull competition? There are many other fields people can compete in. If it has to be loud and make a bang there is i.e. rocket assisted model aviation just to name one. Guns can therefore be reasonably substituted by other means.
infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
Drugs are generally a thing that people use consensually on themselves, generally taking care as to any consequences.
Guns are something you typically use non-consensually, on someone else, often when the consequences be damned.
I’m personally against gun prohibition, but the logic differentiation between guns and drugs is pretty basic.
tigerjerusalem@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I see your point, but I’m not thinking just about the end but the middle: the things that happens in between for the product to arrive at the hands of the user. A cartel has massive power doing drug deals, and uses violence to assert its control over the market. The same happened in the prohibition era with alcohol. Wouldn’t the same happen with gun prohibition?
spankysalmon@fedinsfw.app 3 weeks ago
Nah, underground gun trafficking is a solved problem for criminals. The only thing a gun ban would do is piss off all the libertarian types and provide ample conflict to further militarize the police over.