Breaking Bad, Breaking Worse...

Its interesting that New Mexico was so proud of the TV series "Breaking Bad" which of course extolled the horrific violence that plagues this state in large part due to the drug trade and drug addiction (compounded with poor education, lousy jobs, and poverty, all of which, across the USA, breeds drug abuse). Crystal meth is one of the more violence-inducing of the various drugs that plagues us. But New Mexico's pride in that TV series was basically all about the money that the series brought to the state; the estimate in the link above was about 700k per episode. At 62 episodes, that was about 42 million bucks. Plus or minus the usual smoke and mirrors when the government auctions off tax dollars to bring in business.

The real cost of "Breaking Bad"
Michelle Martens, from the Abq Journal

 Of course the cost of the real meth epidemic is far higher. One RAND study put the U.S. social cost of crystal meth addiction at 23 billion dollars. Scaled just on the basis of population, that would mean that meth costs New Mexico somewhat more than an order of magnitude more than the movie brought in. Some deal.

Aside from the financial cost there is the social one. Fabian Gonzales, Michelle Martens, and Jessica Kelly epitomize the worst of the worst of the meth epidemic. I won't repeat what they did here. Go read about it if you want to lose lunch.  Their crime, as well as other recent henious acts, have resulted in calls to reintroduce the death penalty. These folks sure are the poster children for such a fate.  But all the death penalties in the world will not deter people who have sunk so low; killing them will not bring little Victoria Martens back from the grave. What we really need is to spend more on social services to save kids like Victoria from our worst elements and to try to interdict the drug scourge to keep potentially good people from circling the bowl--and taking others with them. The staggering cost of a capital punishment trial is throwing good money after bad and we don't have money to waste in New Mexico.

"A society where citizens maintain the right to bear arms must maintain a gun culture that instills the corresponding obligation to preserve life"  -Ben Peterson

A society where citizens maintain the right to bear arms must maintain a gun culture that instills the corresponding obligation to preserve life. - See more at: https://home.isi.org/node/68882#sthash.9ER0cxWG.dpuf

A society where citizens maintain the right to bear arms must maintain a gun culture that instills the corresponding obligation to preserve life. - See more at: https://home.isi.org/node/68882#sthash.9ER0cxWG.dpuf

Most of the people in New Mexico are good folks. But it only takes a few of the rotten ones to ruin it for us. Going back to that gun raffle in Otero County, it would not bother me in the least if 100 people who were peaceful, law abiding members of a gun culture won some guns. Hurray for them! Even a high capacity AR or God forbid, that "sniper rifle" Barrett 50BMG (basically, it is a large caliber, long range and very accurate rifle--the military use is sniping and light anti-vehicle; I would have to take it to the Whittington Center to really exercise the thing). What makes me pause is that we are all held hostage to the lowest of the low.  I once blogged that we in the firearms community should never sell a gun to someone we do not know well without going through a background check. I'll say it again here: if one of those guns ends up being flipped to a third party and used in a nasty crime, the United Way will be wearing the hair shirt. Its up to the gun community to push for high standards; blunderbuss gun laws don't do that. If we don't lead the way, as Ben Peterson says so well, we will be punished by laws and political attacks that assume low standards.

But Gonzales, Martens, and Kelly did not use a firearm to commit one of the most heinous crimes that New Mexico can remember (and that is a stiff competition). Their prey was so helpless they did not need to resort to engineered violence. For others in our underworld, whether gangs, drug dealers, or disaffected spouses, guns are a tool of trade and violence. But the usual suggestions for gun laws primarily affect law abiding gun owners. The solutions to gun violence, as well as violence in general, is not to further saddle good citizens with poorly thought through laws and regulations. We need to solve the social ills that damn us and in addition, recruit the gun owning community to help draft policies that keep guns out of the wrong hands because as long as we have the war on drugs, poverty, and income inequality, to name just three things, we will have the wrong hands with us.

You are blocked from following @CeasefireOregon and viewing @CeasefireOregon's tweets

Khalil Spencer ‏@khalil_spencer

@CeasefireOregon Five rounds is high capacity??? Whose def? A lot of your proposals are harassment if not unproven or both.

Yep. This post got me blocked.  Support common sense query control.

Added later. I posted this comment to Greg Camp's critique of the NMPGV Huffington article.


"A society where citizens maintain the right to bear arms must maintain a gun culture that instills the corresponding obligation to preserve life"-Ben Peterson, in "Gun Availability Isn't Gun Culture", Intercollegiate Review, Fall 2015

As far as a gun raffle, it would not bother me in the least if 100 people who are peaceful (caveat: peaceful people can use lawful violence in self defense), law abiding members of a gun culture win some guns. Good for them. Even those high capacity ARs or God forbid, that "sniper rifle" Barrett 50BMG (If I won it, I would have to take it to the Whittington Center to really exercise the thing--its not a good beginner's gun!)

What makes me pause is that we are all held hostage to the lowest of the low. I once blogged that in my opinion, we in the firearms community should never sell a gun to someone we do not know without going through a background check. I'll say it again here: if one of those raffle guns ends up being flipped to a less than stellar third party and used in a nasty crime, the United Way will be wearing the hair shirt.

Its up to the gun community to push for high standards of gun ownership because blunderbuss gun laws don't do any good. If we don't lead the way, as Ben Peterson says so well, we will be punished by laws and political attacks that assume low standards.

My problem with the Huffington piece is that it doesn't draw a distinction between responsible gun ownership and a gun raffle. It pretty much begs the question that these guns will become "instruments of mayhem" rather than challenging us to make sure that they do not go that route. If the question is whether these guns will be responsibly owned and responsibly sold (if they are sold), that is a good question that the Otero County folks need to assert. No one else can do that for them.

I've lived with guns for over fifty years. They don't jump off tables and do bad things. They are at the will of their owners. Those 100 folks who win guns must live up to their responsibilities as members of Ben Peterson's gun culture. If so, we are OK.