As I troll the internet looking for gun-related content, I see a lot of stories where there are arrests featuring both guns and drugs. In fact, every sizeable arrest features guns to some degree or another.
And today was no different. This time, I’ve got a story out of Arkansas featuring both.
Federal, state, and local law enforcement partners, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas and Federal Bureau of investigation’s Little Rock Field Office conducted Operation Viper that led to the arrests of 39 individuals, the seizure of 33 firearms, the seizure of $74,000 in illegal proceeds, around 100 pounds of marijuana, and large quantities of fentanyl and other illicit pills.
As a result, nine individuals have been indicted on federal firearms violations by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“Together with our law enforcement partners, our office seeks to remove as many violent and repeat offenders from our communities as possible,” said U.S. Attorney Jonathan D. Ross, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas. “The success of this collaboration reflects the ongoing commitment of our office, law enforcement, and first responder partnerships to lower violent crime and the consistent pursuit of violent offenders across Arkansas.”
Now, let’s keep in mind that federal law prohibits people from lawfully owning guns if they use an illicit substance, and this isn’t a case of people with a prescription for pot, which means it’s illicit. It prevents felons from owning guns, machine guns are prohibited without certain strict criteria being met, and through it all, these guys had guns.
Of course, they also had a whole lot of marijuana.
The only industry that’s as regulated as the gun industry is the pharmaceutical industry. Drugs are tightly controlled, not considered a constitutionally protected right, and are legal almost nowhere in the world. Yes, marijuana has growing acceptance, but this isn’t confined to the subset of criminals who focus on pot.
No, this is everywhere in the drug trade, and the fact that there’s a drug trade at all should be a clear indicator of just how worthless strict controls are in preventing black market sales and illegal use. Many of the drugs on the market are illegal to some degree in all 50 states, to say nothing of the world as a whole, yet they flow in so readily that we have an epidemic of opioid use and the deaths resulting from it. I can get Narcan on Amazon, and probably should, since overdoses are so common and so fatal.
And yet, we’re expected to believe that if we just make it so every lawful sale of a firearm goes through an FFL, we can keep criminals disarmed?
Hardly.
The problems with drugs should be an ample illustration that restrictions don’t stop the bad actors from being bad actors. At best, it creates an opportunity for the more entrepreneurial criminals to fill the new market created by the restrictions.
The only lasting legacy of Prohibition, other than some fancy whiskey bottling, is the mafia, which provided booze to an America that wasn’t interested in being sober all the time. Drugs have given us the cartels and the gangs, which won’t go away no matter how much we try.
Gun restrictions aren’t going to stop the bad guys and anyone with an house of sense and honesty knows it.
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