Phones, Drugs & Guns

Phones. Drugs. Guns. What do these three things have in common?

• Walter White Starter Kit?
• Party Weekend in Arkansas?
• The Hierarchy of Needs if Maslow was a Mobster?

Nope.

There is a huge secondary market for each of these products - and manufacturers make a lot of money from the sale of stolen smartphones, prescription drugs, and handguns.

U.S. Black Market Estimates
Phones - $30B cost to consumers annually
Drugs - $25B in sales annually
Guns - $1B in sales annually

And while Apple and Samsung (on their own) and drug manufacturers (at the behest of our government) are now making it more difficult for their products to be resold illegally, no one is asking gun manufacturers to do the same.

Why not?

Guns are arguably the most deadly of the three products. There were 32,163 gun deaths in the United States in 2011. There were only 87 gun deaths in Norway the same year. And 77 of those happened in one mass murder. Which was the deadliest attack in that country since World War II.

If phone and drug companies are doing it, it seems a rational thing to suggest that gun manufacturers be held accountable for where their products end up and how they are used.

Yet no one is talking about it. Why?

• Because somehow it shifts a teensy bit of the blame away from the actual murderers. 
• Because the Second Amendment trumps all.
• Because it's really all about money and fear. 

Knowing what we know about big data and analytics, it would be very easy for gun manufacturers to determine the gun dealers that are selling an inordinate amount of guns, presumably due to straw purchases. With RFID technology, it would be very easy to track all guns made, sold, and used in crimes in the U.S.

If people die regularly from mass murders in the U.S. and we have the technology to make this country safer by tracking and controlling the distribution of guns, what's the problem?

There's too much money being made. It's that simple.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Speaking of Norway, have you watched Bill O'Reilly lately? No?

In his Talking Points from Wednesday, O'Reilly said that mass murders are not preventable in the United States because...Norway. That's right.

"There is no way to stop mass murder. NO WAY."

He goes on to say that because one mass murder happened in Norway ONCE, mass murders in the U.S. are not preventable. Oh, and anyone who has the nerve to mention the lunacy of U.S. gun laws in the wake of a mass shooting is exploiting the murders for political gain.

Of the 32 mass murders that happened worldwide from 1966 to 2012, 50% of them occurred here in the United States. France and Finland had the next greatest number of mass murders with two each.

With every other chronic health crisis - and make no mistake, it's a health crisis - smart people figure out a way to fix it. Or at least make it happen less often.

Think if someone said:
"There is no way to stop AIDS. NO WAY."
"There is no way to stop drunk driving. NO WAY."

The only difference here is the money and power behind the NRA. The only thing getting in the way of reducing the number of mass murders is people like Bill O'Reilly telling everyone it can't be done.

I'm not saying the crazies aren't responsible for what they do. People kill people. People with guns kill more people.

Make no mistake about it. The NRA is not about your freedom. Or your safety.

It's all about money. And until gun manufacturers are held accountable for how their products are used, we can get used to more madmen like Elliot Rodgers killing people because he couldn't get laid.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am reading:
What Did the Framers Really Mean? - New York Times
NRF Meets its Match - Salon
No Way to Prevent This, Says Only Nation Where this Regularly Happens - The Onion
Joe the Plumber: Your Dead Kids Don't Trump My Constitutional Rights - Salon
Bloomberg: Universities Becoming Bastions of Intolerance - CNN
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
I am listening to:  NBC5 News
And I am:  Trying to relax