Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
The disingenuousness of the Left, as epitomized in the presidency of Barak Obama, reached a new level yesterday when the same president who has long lectured Americans about the dangers of firearms being in the wrong hands commuted the sentences of 55 armed criminals.
Those 55 were among the 214 felons whose sentences were commuted yesterday, and all of them ended up in federal pen on drug charges. The firearm felony charges those 55 were convicted on were in addition to drug crimes. Obama has long pledged that he would commute the sentences of non-violent drug offenders who have been sentenced to unduly harsh prison terms under laws signed by Bill Clinton in the 1990s; and this is an idea I wholeheartedly support.
I also understand that the drug trade being a “black market” means that there are no legal avenues for the participants therein to address their problems with one another and so violence is the only solution left available. As such, it’s easy to see why people involved in selling drugs would be armed in the process of doing so. I’m comfortable with calling someone convicted of selling drugs while armed, where there’s no evidence he actually harmed anyone, a “non-violent drug offender.”
What irritates me about this whole thing, however, is the aforementioned disingenuousness. The Left routinely vilifies the National Rifle Association, many of their mouth-breathers going so far as to call them a “terrorist organization.” The NRA, however, lobbied hard in favor of laws dubbed “Project Exile” years ago, and those laws were adopted by many states; they added additional penalties for those who were in possession of a firearm while committing other crimes. For the most part, Project Exile is a good idea; it only becomes problematic when it is applied to “crimes” that shouldn’t be crimes to begin with. Of course, when the entire purpose of the state is abused as it inherently is with the war on drugs, even good ideas have a way of becoming twisted around and turned inside out.
To me, this matter shines the light on the dire need for both a comprehensive reform of the criminal justice system and an honest reflection upon gun ownership in the United States. Sadly, none of that will happen as the “big story” the media will insist on telling us about this is that Obama has set a record for commuted sentences – thus making him some sort of de facto hero of criminal justice reform. Never mind that, in reality, he’s applying Band-Aids to bullet wounds.
If it weren’t for the drug war, those men wouldn’t have been arrested and incarcerated to begin with. If it weren’t for the drug war, people wouldn’t be buying meth and pot and whatever from armed de facto criminals on the street, they’d be buying them from the same guy who sells them cigarettes. If it weren’t for the drug war, there would be no armed-but-non-violent “criminals” in prison to begin with. That Obama is being lauded for treating the symptoms of a diseased system just goes to show how completely uncritical the mainstream media is any more. This is, after all, a fairly large disconnect to ignore.
The other massive disconnect is the Left’s constant bemoaning of the “epidemic of gun violence” while they ignore the fact that a full 13 percent of firearm homicides are gang related. Of course, the existence of gangs themselves is another symptom of the drug war. There’s been a massive decline in the number of guys in pinstriped suits shooting each other with Thompson SMGs over bootlegging turf since the 21st Amendment was ratified. That’s not a coincidence.
If Obama, if indeed the government as a whole really wanted to do something substantive about these issues, they could. The problems with our criminal justice system are quite rare, really, in that they’re problems that the government can actually solve; but, only because they’re problems the government created in the first place. And that’s the rub. Government is quite prideful of its creations, even the monstrous ones, and doesn’t like to destroy them. Doing so, in addition to resulting in a loss of government power and control, also equates to admitting the government was wrong about something; that a policy didn’t work out. Government hates to let the serfs see any perceived weakness.
So, we’re trapped in this odd paradox where we can all see a problem, in part because of the silly and largely symbolic steps taken to address it, but on one has the guts to do what is required to actually fix the problem outright. So, the tragedies attendant to the failed policies government refuses to get rid of will carry on. There will be more young people shooting each other to death, more law enforcement presence in those “high crime” neighborhoods leading to more police shootings and more backlash. By day’s end, all 214 people Obama set free will be replaced with newly arrested “drug offenders.” Asset forfeiture will continue to erode the public’s trust in law enforcement in general and our society will stay mired in this maelstrom of counterproductive, stubborn stupidity.
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