Old Ignorance in the United States Again

I'm always amazed at my own reaction when people keep making the same mistakes, over and over again. I always expect people, as a group, to learn from their mistakes but they never do and I am always amazed when they don't.

The British created a bunch of restrictive laws governing tea and the response was an armed insurrection against the British Crown. We call it the American Revolution. Others call it a guerrilla war of terror on the British Colonial Government. Whatever anyone calls it, it was a reaction to restrictive laws that the populace felt were unfair.

I could quote thousands of examples from history. Prohibition, restrictive laws on the sale of alcohol is another shinning example of stupidity. The “war on drugs” is a great example. Prostitution another.

What happens when governments make restrictive laws that a significant number of people disagree with? The government loses control of the market. Whatever the government restricts, blue jeans in the soviet union for example, becomes an unregulated, untaxed, uncontrolled black market. If enough people disagree with the restrictions there is a revolution, violent guerrilla terrorist war like the American Revolution or peaceful revolution like “glasnost” was in the Soviet Union.

So some jerk decides the world is ending Friday, he wants to save the children from the horror of it all so he goes to a school and shoots them all.

Now people want to make the same mistake they made with prohibition and recreational drugs.

Amazing isn't it. People making the same mistakes, over and over again. Sometimes I wonder how stupid people are. Other times I just have to shake my head at the pure, unadulterated stupidity.

How violent will the black market in guns become as restrictions increase? Well, we can predict that based on the violence created by restrictions on alcohol and recreational drugs. See, the more people that want something (demand) and the more people who can make it (supply) the more violent the market becomes. Competitors killing each other and the public off.

I know that people who are ignorant of basic manufacturing and engineering often think guns are too difficult to manufacture illegally. The Israelis built clandestine underground factories to build guns and ammunition. Guns can be powered by almost anything explosive, gasoline (using fuel injector systems), butane, propane, natural gas and almost anything including compressed air. I know some people are thinking pellet guns, but, built right compressed air guns can shoot like a 38 special at up to about 25 yards.

The United States is filled with do-it-yourselfers. Guys with mechanical skills who understand how to make things work. Guys who used to work in manufacturing and are unemployed. Guys who are going to need to feed their families and some of those guys will build lighter fluid powered sub machine guns firing ball bearings from bicycles to make enough money to feed their kids.

They can't force people to obey the law in China, the Soviet Union or in super max prisons. The likelihood of everyone in an economic crisis obeying new laws that they disagree with and that open up a way for them to make money to feed their families is pretty slim. About zero.

People amaze me. I can't believe we evolved to destroy the planet, or maybe I can.