Raising Smoking Age Also Raises Concerns More Dangerous than Tobacco

Opinion

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “President Donald Trump on Friday signed a sweeping spending bill into law, including a measure that prohibits the sale of tobacco products to anyone under the age of 21,” CNN reports. “The restriction on tobacco sales has long been pushed by a bipartisan mix of senators: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican; Republican Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Todd Young of Indiana; as well as Democrats including Sens. Richard Durbin of Illinois, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Brian Schatz of Hawaii.”

What that has to do with defense appropriations is left unsaid, although you can be sure proponents have plenty of disingenuous reasons why usurping undelegated powers and excreting a group dump on the principles of federalism trumps their oaths of office. Hey, they’ve been doing it with everything else since before living memory, and besides, it’s “for the children.” The average American won’t even realize there’s a conflict. And the average judge will have plenty of stare decisis to “justify” the government’s actions should any naïve “principles freaks” try to challenge them.

“We have to take care of our kids, most importantly, so we’re going to have an age limit of 21 or so, so we’ll be coming out with something next week very important on vaping,” President Trump had announced in November, signaling he was all in for prohibition.

Take the tobacco products and e-cigarettes first, go through due process second? Careful with that line of thinking, Mr.President. And what’s with “kids”?

Where the gun issue comes into all this should be obvious. Look at all that’s being done to limit access to rifles and handguns to anyone under 21. If you’re a “minority,”  Mike Bloomberg wants it to be 25.

As a matter of historical perspective, Audie Murphy would have been deemed “too young” to be trusted with a rifle at the time his legendary heroics earned him recognition as the most decorated combat soldier of WWII. It also flies in the face of 10 U.S. Code § 246 – Militia: composition and classes:

“(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age…”

So, am I saying young people ought to smoke when we know the likely terrible health and economic consequences in advance? No. I’m saying if a citizen is old enough to die fighting for his country, he’s old enough to make life decisions. I’m saying power-motivated rule unbound by restraints has always been the greatest author of human misery and death. Always. I’m saying every loosening of Constitutional chains moves our government closer to the tyranny foreseen by the Framers when they ratified the Second Amendment.

I’m also calling rank hypocrisy on everyone who says this issue justifies it, and who would impose their will on a targeted group of citizens under the force of law.

Try suggesting to “progressives” in favor of age-based smoking bans that a person under 21 also doesn’t have the judgment or emotional maturity to have an abortion. Or form contracts and indebt themselves with student loans (scratch that one—they want you to pay for it). Or get married. Or parent. Or undergo “gender reassignment.”

Or vote. Seizing on a demographic political advantage, Democrat political momentum is picking up to lower the age to 16.

Look at the eye-rolling cult frenzy with which the environmental cases worship totalitarian teenybopper Greta Thunberg and demand the economy be upended with manipulated wealth transfers. Look at the entire Marx… uh… March for Our Lives citizen disarmament phenomenon, and the manufactured assumption that its leadership comes from youthful idiot headliners instead of the hidden elder string-pullers financing the fraud.

But they’re not old enough to smoke or vape? To describe such beliefs as bipolar would be kind. It used to be you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Now they demand it, and if you point out the cognitive dissonance, you’re the Nazi.

Unsurprisingly, “leaders” of the Stupid Party has been lobbied into going along with the ban under the presumption it will somehow keep even more draconian legislation against the tobacco industry from being enacted. It’s the same mentality that leads a trade association to “compromise” on guns, the theory being if we don’t throw “expendables” under the bus, they’ll go after something that’ll really hurt us!

The idea that you don’t discourage a circling pack of ravenous predators by throwing it increasingly large chunks of flesh seems not to have occurred to them.

So welcome to the latest prohibition. The thing is, don’t expect it to work any better than any of the others have when there is a substantial portion of the population demanding products the black market will be happy to supply them if a controlled market cannot. That means a whole new cycle of criminals with lucrative incentives to take risks will have been created by the people posturing to oppose them. And that means more violence, and then more strident demands that “something must be done,” including pumping even more appropriations plunder into the rights-trampling law enforcement machine, and naturally, demanding even more stupid and evil “commonsense gun laws.”

 

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About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.