Say Anything Blog

The Obama administration has become fond of blaming violent crime in places like Mexico, our border areas along the Mexican border and Jamaica on American guns being shipped there.  Which is something based on the typical liberal presumption that the mere availability of proliferation of guns breeds crime and violence.

In pushing their argument, Obama and his colleagues are fond of citing statistics which seem to indicate that most of the guns used in crimes in places like Mexico and Jamaica come from America.  Obama repeated that statistic again just recently:

The problem is that this statistic simply isn’t true.  As the Houston Chronicle recently reported:

WASHINGTON — Barely 8 percent of the estimated 100,000 firearms seized in Mexico’s drug wars over the past three years have been traced to U.S. sales by licensed gun dealers, Congress was told Thursday.

But going beyond the lies perpetrated by Obama and others about where these guns are coming from, it’s absurd to suggest that it is the guns that are causing the problem.  The stated goal of the people perpetuating this myth is to stop the crime and violence.  I share that goal, but I recognize that crime and violence isn’t motivated by the guns.

The motivating factor is a black market in illegal narcotics.  If America didn’t have an unquenchable thirst for banned substances there wouldn’t be any reason for drug cartels in places like Mexico and Jamaica to battle our law enforcement officers and each other to service it.  Much as alcohol prohibition and gambling prohibition gave rise to the Italian mafia and other organized crime syndicates in America’s past, drug prohibition has given rise to violent drug cartels in places like Mexico.

Meaning this debate should be about that drug prohibition.  Not about guns.  Though it is a politically astute maneuver on the part of liberals like Obama to tie our problem with drug violence to guns.  If there’s one issue that ostensibly limited government conservatives will get on board with big government it’s the failed “war on drugs” policy.  Obama is a smart politician, and thinks he can leverage that unblinking support for big government anti-drug policy into big government anti-gun policy.