Guns & Politics - What We Must Learn from the Financial Crisis

The U.S. reaction to drug violence in Mexico has the gun-lobby paranoid. The NRA and its supporters are claiming the Obama administration is trying to use the issue to push through more restrictive gun control legislation. The gun-lobby, as you might expect, would much rather self-regulate, even when national security is involved.

Look, I'm not anti-gun. I've shot guns, been duck hunting and even earned the marksmanship merit badge in Boy Scouts. I don't have a problem with hunting or collecting guns, when done safely like it is so many times across the U.S. The problem arises when the gun-lobby endorses bad policies that place us at risk.

We can argue til the cows come home over the Second Amendment, but if we don't effectively address our own involvement in the growing problem of armed drug cartels in Mexico (both drug use AND supply of guns), then we place ourselves at risk of living next door to a failed, armed and violent narco-state whose largest market is us. In which direction do you think the violence is headed?

But when you listen to the gun-lobby you hear a different story.

Secretary of State Clinton's recent admission that firearms purchased in the U.S. and smuggled into Mexico fuel drug violence in that country was met with the usual hyperbole and denial by the guns-at-all-costs crowd. Former U.S. Rep., NRA supporter and 2008 Presidential candidate, Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., says Clinton is "part of Obama's plan to conduct a war on guns". Despite all of the evidence on the ATF website that form the basis for Clinton's admission , Tancredo claims that drug cartels use weapons purchased from Mexican army deserters. And to solve this problem, he says, we should militarize the border.

Sure, Tom. Whatever you say. Even the NRA admits that guns are smuggled across the border (but they say the real problem is drugs, not guns, so any new regulation on the sale of weapons is misplaced - and militarizing the border is the answer).

Militarizing the border is a huge, expensive government program that inefficiently addresses the symptoms of drugs and violence, but not the causes (and how does this possibly bolster our Second Amendment rights???). And to let the root causes of this major problem fester is irresponsible and dangerous.

Part of the immediate solution is to stop the flow of guns by placing reasonable but effective regulations on the more than 6000 gun dealers who have set up shop along the 2000 mile border. That's 3 dealers per mile, on average.

I think we can live free without gangland-style drug executions and a new Columbine every few months. It's not hard to see that the gun-lobby is more concerned about sales than they are about safety, or even the second amendment. C'mon. The argument to further militarize the government is antithetical to the aim of preventing potential tyranny by that same government.

So, I challenge the silent center, on both sides of the aisle, to speak up for our own safety and sane gun regulation, and for an effective policy that prevents U.S.-made weapons from fueling the growing problem of narco-violence along our southern border.

If we learn one thing from the current financial mess, it's that self-regulation, when left unchecked, results in disasterous self-inflicted wounds. When it comes to guns, we don't want to make that same mistake twice.