Gangs, Guns, and Drugs

by Richard G. Eramian

Around 1920, our government illegalized the drug alcohol and proceeded to wage a war against millions of peaceful human beings. The police were given the power to assault, rob, and arrest millions of honest consumers, producers, and businessmen. What were the results of all this government violence and massive violation of human rights? The main results of that illegalization war were the creation of numerous police and private gangs such as those infamously led by Elliot Ness and Al Capone, gang violence, gun violence, drive-by shootings, battles over turf, and violent disputes. Not supriseing to anyone who understands basic economics and human action, that violent and criminal intervention by the government into the free market produced an equally violent and crime-ridden underground market.

Some other results of that government violence were many deaths and poisonings due to improperly manufactured and adulterated alcohol because it could no longer be produced in a free market. Millions of young people were drawn into the alcohol trade to replace the adult distributors that were driven out by the law and millions more were attracted to alcohol as a form of rebellion against authoritarian government.

Eventually, the American people came to their senses and repealed that Prohibition war. The gangs, violence, crime, and civil rights violations that were created by illegalization were ended by restoring freedom.

The main opposition to ending that war came from the police-prison-industrial complex which had profited greatly from that war. Illegalization gave them much more power and much bigger budgets. Restoring freedom meant that the police were no longer authorized to arrest millions of honest consumers, producers, and distributors. It meant an end to all the police and private gangs, and gang violence. Freedom meant that the police would no longer be allowed to arrest peaceful people who mind their own business. They could only arrest people who commit real crimes such as theft, fraud, and assault.

It is important to note that the violence and crime produced by that drug war were not ended by the policy of more laws, more police, more prisons, bigger police stations, putting police in schools, anti-drug squads, anti-gun squads, special investigative units, drug courts, gun courts, mass arrests, sweeps, more aggressive enforcement, bigger police budgets, and more taxes to pay for all this repression as advocated by armies of self-serving law enforcement officials and parroted by the mass media. The gang violence was not ended by escalating the violence against the victims of that illegalization war. On the contrary, it was the enactment and enforcement of unjust, illegalization laws that created the gangs, violence, and crime.

The people who founded this country had it right. They understood that freedom produces peace, harmony, and prosperity. Wars against freedom produce violence, crime, and conflict.