[SkyBelow]

>There's no reason to possess these weapons any more than there's a reason to possess nuclear warheads.

I've yet to see any valid reasons to possess drugs or alcohol. With guns, there is at least the justification of self defense.

>and pray the crime away.

Is that not what is being done with all crimes (drunk driving, but also many assaults) associated with alcohol?

There are two ways government can work. You can either have it where you have to justify to the government why you should have something, or you can have it where the government can justify why you should not have something. The former is far worse. The latter only works if the logic used is consistent, else it is really the former in disguise.

People always seem to want the former when it comes to guns, but the latter when it comes to things they personally like which have been associated with government restrictions. Why is the double standard held so openly?

[goatlover]

> I've yet to see any valid reasons to possess drugs or alcohol.

For recreation, therapy, socialization, experimentation, mysticism, or just because it's my own damn body.

> With guns, there is at least the justification of self defense.

That would be fine if gun violence wasn't a thing.

[brandonmenc]

Alcohol use sends a person with impaired judgement and often times a short fuse into the public space to wreak havoc. By the millions.

How many fist fights, rapes, harassment, spouse and child beatings, car crashes, on the job accidents, chronic illness, and early deaths must society be forced to accept just so people with disposable income can enjoy a nice red wine with their meal?

Seems pretty selfish.

[goatlover]

Society already has been down the road of banning alcohol, and it went over just as poorly as the war on drugs, with tons of social and economic costs.

[SkyBelow]

Past failure does not inherently prove future failure. Plenty of things were implemented poorly and yet people who favor them will argue that it just needs to be done better.

Are they correct or are they missing something core enough to the issue that makes poor implementation and almost assured outcome?

And for bans in general, there are many bans that went poorly yet people still generally approve of a ban, even when it has unintended costs, as long as they have a strong dislike of the item being banned.

For example, CSA image bans have a history of being used to restrict freedom (such as the recent attack on encryption) and great personal cost to individuals (any kids who get caught up in laws that didn't make exceptions for kids committing the criminal acts), and they can largely be judged as a failure (from police and news reports of how the problem continues to grow worse). Yet such laws have extremely widespread support, more than most any other law I can think of, to the extent where even reasonable rollbacks of the existing to attempt to fix some of the current problems can kill a political career.

[SkyBelow]

>For recreation, therapy, socialization, experimentation, mysticism, or just because it's my own damn body.

Reasoning that equally applies to guns.

>That would be fine if gun violence wasn't a thing.

Drug violence is also a thing.

So in conclusion, it appears there is a double standard being applied here. I suggest getting to the root of that, as otherwise all arguments can easily be dismissed as coming from someone who is applying a double standard (which is a version of special pleasing, a logical fallacy, and thus invalidates any logical basis for their views).