Five Arrested On Drug, Gun Charges After Advertising on Social Media

I know people who, for a while, couldn’t post a single meme without catching some sort of ban on social media, particularly Facebook. You couldn’t get away with anything unless you were toeing the official line. We now know that the FBI was actually directing at least some of the site’s actions.

But the fact that they took that approach always kind of bugged me, in part because we’ve seen criminals basically advertise their “goods” on the site. These are the ones that got caught, but how many of them escaped notice?

You and I can’t advertise our firearms on the site without catching hell from the site, but these five didn’t blink in advertising drugs and machine guns.

Five suspects were arrested after they allegedly used social media to traffic guns and drugs, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office said.

What we know:

In a Feb. 10 news release, the sheriff’s office said investigators Valley-wide were able to identify and arrest five suspects accused of advertising fully-automatic machine guns online.

“During the arrest, in addition to the weapons, dangerous substances including 2,000 fentanyl pills, small quantities of cocaine, MDMA, and methamphetamines were confiscated,” the sheriff’s office said.

Of the two firearms actually shown, one was a Glock handgun, though not one equipped with a full-auto switch, and some kind of AR-type rifle. I’m assuming there were full-auto switches or additional firearms and that the rifle itself was modified for full-auto fire, but there aren’t any specifics in the report.

Of course, fully automatic weapons are the most heavily restricted guns in the country, which means it’s unlikely these aren’t legal firearms.

The only thing that’s nearly as tightly regulated as full-auto weapons? Drugs.

In fact, pharmaceuticals might be the one industry more tightly regulated than the gun industry, at least in some ways, and these guys had prohibited items from both.

It’s almost like criminals aren’t really deterred by laws and stuff.

Nothing these guys were reportedly caught with was acceptable. All of it is heavily restricted. I can’t get a full-auto AR-type rifle or a full-auto switch without dropping new car money and jumping through seemingly endless hoops. I can’t get cocaine or MDMA at the pharmacy. None of this is legal in any way.

And yet, these five were allegedly caught with all of it.

Laws don’t restrict behavior in the people whose behavior is most in need of restriction. Criminals continue to do the things they’re prohibited from doing. Only the law-abiding are prevented from owning these kinds of firearms in any real, meaningful way.

If gun control works, why has drug control failed so miserably? What is so different about one versus the other, at least when it comes to preventing criminals from having them?

The answer is nothing.

Where the difference lies is that people like you and me could own these guns and the only thing getting shot up would be targets at the range or anyone stupid enough to try to attack us. That’s it.

It’s way past time to end every gun control law in the country. Stop infringing on our rights by claiming you need to address crime, especially since it’s obvious that criminals aren’t being addressed.