Sebastian points out the Washington Post reported yesterday:

A binational task force on U.S.-Mexico border issues will call Friday on the Obama administration and Congress to reinstate an expired ban on assault weapons and for Mexico to overhaul its frontier police and customs agencies to mirror the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

I just have to shake my head. These people just don’t get it.

First off by announcing this they just further cemented the fact that “assault weapons” of the type banned in 1994 will become even more common in the U.S. The sales and backlog had almost returned to normal and now this is going to create a fresh round of buying. If it hadn’t happened already the current administration, with their promises (so far unfulfilled) to ban “assault weapons” ensured they can never be banned. Why? Because in D.C. v. Heller the court decided the types of firearms protected are those “common use”. See pages 2, 55, and 58 of the decision.

The types of guns in highest demand just after Obama was elected were those most likely to be banned. There are now many millions of those guns in the hands of ordinary people and there will be hundreds of thousands more before the politicians could ever get something through congress. And then the inevitable court challenge will almost have to conclude that the guns are in “common use” and therefore cannot be banned. Not only is Obama the greatest gun salesman this country has ever known but he also may have driven the last “coffin nail” into the pointless “assault weapon” bans making them forever a dead issue–except for repeal of the existing ones in the various states after the Second Amendment is incorporated in the Chicago Gun Case.

And the Brady Campaign endorsed Obama for President. How’s that working out for you guys?

My second point is really the main issue. The problem is most people don’t really understand the big picture. Mexico is being destroyed by the same type of stupidity. People are trying to interfere with the free market and this can’t really be done. The free market can be pushed in different directions but it can’t really be fully suppresed.

There is a large market for guns and recreational drugs. Governments can’t really “ban” them. They can only raise the price. The price increase may include the risk of spending time in jail but the government passing a law making them illegal does not remove their existence from the planet or even the political jurisdiction of the government. When the price goes up it increases the profits. When the profit potential goes up more people are willing to risk going to jail in the process of getting a share of that profit. In the case of recreational drugs the profit is so great the people profiting from the drug trade has, essentially, brought down the Mexican government. I believe the only way order can be restored in Mexico is for recreational drugs to be made legal in both the U.S. and Mexico.

But people just don’t get it. Somehow they believe something that mostly works on the scale of an individual home when you remove medicines from the reach of small children can work at the larger scale of an entire continent or even the planet. It doesn’t and it can’t. You can only increase the price.

Our country learned this in the 1920s with prohibition and we now raise the price on the dangerous recreational drug ethanol via a tax rather than attempting a ban. If the governments of the U.S. and Mexico really wanted to solve the problem that is bringing down the Mexican government and resulting in the deaths of thousands in the “drug wars” they could turn the drug trade into a huge source of tax revenue. Instead of spending billions on trying to raise the price via jail terms and attempted “interdiction” they could raise the price via a tax and bring in billions of dollars.

But I don’t have any hope of a sudden attack of rationality striking people. Unjustified and demonstrably false faith in the power of government to successfully interfere with the free market has existed for hundreds of years and it’s not going away anytime soon. Expecting people to be rational is irrational.

Doug Pennington who is the Assistant Director of Communications at the Brady Campaign writes:

[I]sn’t it ironic how some libertarians want government to stay out of their lives, yet have no problem with forcing other people to live with loaded, concealed weapons everywhere they turn?  The grocery store; the park; the school; the airport.  Apparently, we have the “freedom” to live with what these so-called libertarians tell us to live with.  After all, they have the guns, right?

I heard sort of argument in the context of concealed carry of guns at least 15 years ago. It was some radio talk show host in San Francisco who asked why she didn’t have the right to walk down the street without people having guns hidden. I suspect this sort of argument resonates with a lot of people.

The thing is people use the same sort of argument with free speech and religious freedom. They ask why do we have to tolerate neo-Nazi’s parading down the street? Or why do we have to tolerate atheists, Muslims, or Jews in our neighborhoods and schools?

If that doesn’t bring my point home try using the argument to support segregation.

Governments don’t force freedom on their citizens. Governments can only infringe freedoms of their subjects.

Wednesday night Barb and I had dinner with Mike Brown of the Idaho Sport Shooters Alliance and his wife. His wife, a big Ayn Rand fan, encapsulated a point in a very compelling way. She said under a free, capitalist, system people are able to create their own little socialist or communist utopia societies and share according to need and take according to their abilities. Or they can give up all “evil” modern technology such as the Amish communities do. Free societies allow such communities to successfully co-exist just fine. If you can own property you can do pretty much whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone else or their property. The government still demands taxes but you don’t have to tolerate other religions, free speech, or people with guns on your property. The same isn’t true under a communist or totalitarian government.

But despite the clear problems of “government forcing freedom” there have been entire books written on the topic. Last year daughter Kim reported her economics class had The Shock Doctrine as required reading. One of the thesis’s of the book is that advocates (such as certain people within the U.S. government) of Milton Friedman are forcing (including using torture) free market economics on people. Kim was pissed and had trouble reading the book because of the anger it invoked. How does a government “force a free market”? A free market is one free of government interference! Force is required to have anything other than a free market.

And so it is with “forcing free speech”, “forcing religious tolerance”, and “forcing other people to live with loaded, concealed weapons everywhere they turn”. Pennington is telling us the true beliefs of his organization and the utopia they would like to create–freedom is slavery.

Update: I apparently got their attention. The post now has this tagged on to the end:

UPDATE: For readers referred from Joe Huffman, guns are not speech.

No one said it was free speech. But both free speech and the right to keep and bear arms are specific enumerated rights protected from infringement by the Bill of Rights. Hence the comparison is valid. For the Brady Campaign to claim a freedom from other people bearing arms is the constitutional equivalent of claiming the freedom from the speech of others. Of course it’s not the physical equivalent. But it is the legal equivalent.

Digressing a little bit I will admit that we probably will not ever have a constitutionally guaranteed right to carry concealed guns in public everywhere. If the Brady Campaign were to explicitly state it is only the carrying of concealed guns they get all uptight about but open carry is okay then I would be much more muted in my criticism of them. The carry of firearms in some form is probably going to be eventually upheld by the courts. Either the politicians have to make concealed carry permits “shall issue” and relatively quick and painless to obtain or they will have probably have to allow open carry without a permit. If some sort of carry for self defense in public is not allowed then the “bear” part of keep and bear arms will be infringed. I’m pretty sure the Brady people see that writing on the wall and are just dragging their feet or in denial.

After thinking about it for a long time and reading nearly all the blog posts and podcasts about the big open carry debate in the last few weeks I’m going to have my say on the topic soon. Perhaps as soon as tomorrow. Brady and company just contributed to my post on the topic.