Pubdate: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 Source: Morning Call (Allentown, PA) Copyright: 2008 The Morning Call Inc. Contact: http://www.mcall.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/275 Author: Pat Rogers DRUG PROHIBITION FEEDS FLOOD OF ILLEGAL GUNS America's free society regulates the distribution and supply of goods and services in order to protect consumers from unscrupulous predators. With intoxicant drugs, American politicians ignore this system. They abandon Americans to the marketing morals and ethics of addict drug dealers, their gangster distributors and other social predators who thrive in a black market. The outcome is a lot more crime, addiction and anarchy than any nation should have to suffer with. The proliferation of cheap and easy-to-get illegal guns is a direct outcome. More supply-side gun laws will do little. The demand for illegal guns is subsidized by the huge demand for illegal guns in the illegal drug markets. The over-supply of illegal guns will get into the hands of thugs like robbers and rapists. No additional regulation of legal gun owners will change this. The only thing that will reduce the demand for illegal guns is to regulate the drug markets. America can reduce the demand for illegal guns and reduce the anarchy and violence that plague our streets today. All it takes is confidence by our politicians in the democratic institutions of regulation and licensing. American politicians, just say no. Pat Rogers Allentown - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom