Benjamin Franklin is credited with the saying “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Moros Konstadinos, at the Truth About Guns has a great post that talks about how It's Strange The Things for Which Some People Are Willing To Make Liberty Tradeoffs.
Konstadinos notes that the same anti-gunners who complain about the death tolls of guns do not seem to be concerned about the death toll due to alcohol. Konstadinos is an attorney, so he likely has seen the results of alcohol abuse up close. But more importantly, he finds that while some people need guns to protect themselves, nobody "needs" alcohol. Indeed, whatever problems you have are only made worse with alcohol.
Watching the usual anti-gun tirades by gun-haters in the aftermath of a high profile shooting like the one in Lewiston, Maine, it’s interesting to see the things that people will and won’t make liberty tradeoffs for. Even those who can only argue by spouting things like, “How many people have to die for your rights?” make these tradeoffs. One that comes up frequently is alcohol.
The United States famously gave prohibition a try. Thanks to widespread non-compliance with the “noble experiment” combined with the inevitable increases in corruption and organized crime that resulted, it didn’t last long.
No one seriously talks about banning alcohol today and there’s very few practical restrictions on its sale. You just have to be 21 years old (a rule that’s easily flouted) and you can buy it at any store or bar that sells it.
You can literally have just been released from a drunk tank or after a DUI arrest and go right back out and buy more. There’s no push by any interest group to change that, and no cries about lax alcohol regulation costing too many lives.
Konstadinos takes notice of the statistics for both guns and alcohol, and points out that these are not even close. He uses CDC statistics and includes gun suicides in the mix to make the numbers equivalent.
A comparison is in order here. According to the CDC, gun-related causes of all types (suicide, homicide, negligence) killed about 48,000 people last year. But also according to the CDC, over 140,000 people die from alcohol-related causes each year. And while many of those are people drinking themselves to death, in 2021 over 13,000 people were killed in drunk driving incidents. That same year, 21% of suicide victims had a blood-alcohol level above 0.1%.
Alcohol-related causes also kill 3,900 people ages 0-20 each year. That’s not quite as high as gun-related deaths in that age group, but it’s in the ballpark. And who knows how many cases of abused children or spouses who are ultimately murdered involved angry drunken fathers?
So with all that in mind, why are some of the very same people who are continually outraged about civilian gun ownership perfectly okay with the status quo on alcohol, which kills about three times as many Americans annually?
Konstadinos never fully answers that question, and to be honest, he is not talking about the Leftists, who want to disarm us for political power. Rather, he is talking about the uninformed, the bleeding heart, the "useful idiots" who react in horror to every mass shooting.
Remember, while some people legitimately do need a gun for self-defense, no one ever “needs” a drink. Guns are used to stop about 1.6 million robberies, assaults, rapes, and murders every year. How many crimes are prevented and lives saved by alcohol?
Alcohol is a worse liberty tradeoff in that sense, because its only utility is having fun and feeling good. To put it in terms the Gun Control Industry might understand, “By continuing to oppose banning alcohol, you’re saying you’re okay with over 100,000 people dying so you can enjoy an occasional beer. You evil monster!”...snip...
It probably comes down to mass shootings specifically. They’re horrifying enough in their rarity and randomness that people don’t think of the numbers in aggregate. They focus instead on the single atrocity. Yet at any time, a drunk driver can take you out of this life, and it’s far more likely that will kill you than a mass shooter.
Still, Benjamin Franklin was right. When someone thinks to trade essential liberty for promised safety, one should do it with eyes wide open. In this case, people are letting emotion cloud their judgement. Most of the people who carry guns pray they never need to use them, and most do not. But the existence of these people and their weapons is an important safeguard for everyone else.
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