Which Is The Worse Epidemic - Heroin or Guns ?

I sat and watched a Senate Committee discussing law enforcement funding yesterday. Don't get me wrong here. I am in favor of fully funding our law enforcement effort in this country. But I did get pretty disgusted with the discussion that went on between the senators and the heads of the law enforcement agencies of the federal government. Both seemed to think those agencies needed more money in the next funding bill.

Why did they need more money. Well, they need it to fight the growing heroin epidemic in this country. The senators all spoke of that growing epidemic in their communities, and the agency heads all bragged about how much better they could fight that "epidemic" if they had more money. Both sides were playing to the public -- trying to scare ordinary Americans into going along with raising funding for our "war on drugs" (a failed effort that has already cost well over a trillion dollars).

Just how bad is this terrible heroin epidemic. There are about 3,600 deaths each year from heroin (over 80% because the users tried to combine it with alcohol or another drug). And if you lump all deaths from illegal drugs together, it amounts to about 17,000 a year. I don't mean to belittle those deaths, but I fail to understand why we continue to throw huge sums of money at the drug problem (in a largely failed effort) -- but refuse to take any action at all to stem the deaths in a much worse epidemic.

I'm talking about the number of deaths from guns in this country. Each year, for at least the last decade, more than 30,000 people die from guns (homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths). That's nearly 10 times the number of people that die from heroin, and nearly double the number of deaths from all illegal drugs combined.

And yet (thanks to the power of the gun lobby -- the NRA and the gun manufacturers) Congress is afraid to even discus this epidemic, let alone do anything about it. I am not talking about violating the Second Amendment, or taking any guns away from law-abiding citizens. We could put a significant dent in these gun deaths by just acting to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the dangerously mentally ill.

And this could be done very cheaply and constitutionally. It wouldn't require we throw billions of dollars at the problem (like we do with drugs). We could just close the loopholes in the background check law for gun purchases. Currently anyone (including criminals) can legally purchase their choice of firearms at gun shows, over the internet, and through private transactions. This is ridiculous. There is no legitimate reason why any gun purchase should be allowed without a background check.

Obviously, our priorities are skewed. We will continue to throw billions of dollars a year at drugs (even though that has proven to be ineffective) -- but will do nothing to slow gun deaths, even an effort that would cost very little (little requiring background checks on all purchases). But this is not a problem with Americans in general. A huge majority of the public would support closing the loopholes in the background check law. It is a congressional problem -- where too many politicians live in fear of the gun lobby spending big dollars to defeat them in the next election.

Aren't you tired of our Congress being a slave to the gun lobby?