Ken Braun: Banning guns will work as well as the war on drugs

[dairydog91]

46. Doesn't have to be addictive, just socially acceptable at the local level.

Weed isn't particularly addictive, and despite its illegality, it's a very popular recreational drug. People aren't smoking it because it turns them into pot-crazed junkies, they smoke it because it feels good.

Also, lots of people aren't "law-abiding", they're "social-standards-abiding." They look to what's acceptable in their community to determine the propriety of behavior. Millions of Americans break the underage drinking laws because their teenage peers consider it completely socially acceptable to drink before you're 21, people of all ages drive faster than the speed limit all the time, 17-year-old Californian high-schoolers have sex with 16-year-old girlfriends/boyfriends (Statutory rape under California law), millions of all ages smoke weed, etc. All examples of illegal activities which are usually socially acceptable in the context in which the acts are committed.

If a prohibited item is socially unacceptable and illegal, then chances are that it will be hard to find. But if it's socially acceptable and illegal, it'll probably remain present in the areas where it's socially acceptable. Alcohol prohibition was intensely regional, with urban areas like Chicago and New York hugely opposed to prohibition and rural areas being the strongest areas of support for prohibition. Alcohol remained socially acceptable in the cities, to the point where a New York politician like La Guardia could feel comfortable in openly mocking Prohibition by brewing booze in his office in front of reporters. Police in areas where Prohibition was fiercely unpopular weren't going to effectively enforce Prohibition, first of all because chances were that they opposed it and secondly because criminal trials would go to juries, which were cheerfully nullifying Prohibition cases (Estimated at up to 60% of cases ending in nullification).