Here’s why ballot questions on guns, marijuana deserve yes votes

By Las Vegas Sun Staff (contact)

Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016 | 2 a.m.

The debate over Nevada’s upcoming ballot question to expand background checks for firearm purchases has spun in a lot of different directions, but we’d urge voters to focus on two fundamental points when deciding where they stand on the measure.

Should convicted felons, domestic assault perpetrators and the mentally ill be allowed to purchase and possess firearms?

Given that the obvious answer to the first consideration is no, shouldn’t the requirement for background checks be applied to all purchases and not just those from licensed dealers?

Polls have indicated that most voters will answer yes to the second question, which stands to reason. The measure makes bedrock sense.

In Nevada, background checks have helped block sales to thousands of people who shouldn’t have guns. But since the checks aren’t required for private sales and transfers — through connections on the internet or at gun shows, for instance — it’s easy for those who are rebuffed by licensed dealers to circumvent the background checking process.

A yes vote on Question 1 would help close the loophole, giving Nevada another tool to reduce gun violence.

Naturally, the measure’s NRA-led opponents have come out full force against the measure, but their arguments seem more designed to stoke fear and anger among gun owners than to convince voters at large that the initiative would be bad for Nevada.

For instance, two key points of contention among opponents are that Question 1 is a step toward rescinding Second Amendment rights, and that it’s unfair because it criminalizes legal behavior.

OK, let’s break those down.

First, the measure will have no effect on the gun rights of people who already legally own guns. Not one single person.

Second, our society has often found it necessary to criminalize legal behavior in the name of improving public safety or health. It used to be legal for 18-year-olds to drink, for instance, and there was a time when open container laws were less common than they are today.

Opponents are absolutely correct in that the measure will restrict activities that today are legal, like loaning someone a firearm to try out or giving guns to another person for safe keeping. Guns can be shared with family members or while in sight of the owner without checks, but other transfers will be illegal without them.

Frankly, though, not loaning out guns or finding legal methods for storing them seem like small sacrifices in the name of preventing guns from getting into the wrong hands.

Opponents would beg to differ — they say there will still be ways to easily steer around background checks, so legal owners shouldn’t have to be subjected to restrictions. That’s a weak argument, like saying we shouldn’t set speed limits because we can’t possibly punish everybody who breaks them.

Finally, although the opposition focuses heavily on the fact that 16 of Nevada’s sheriffs are against the measure, you really have to wonder if those sheriffs are motivated mostly by public safety or by political pressure. Anti-gun control sentiment runs hot in Nevada’s rural areas, where most of those sheriffs are located, and government leaders who take a moderate stance on the issue risk getting voted out. It’s telling that Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo is staying neutral.

Meanwhile, the vote yes campaign has put together a broad base of community support — from criminal justice authorities, union members, the mayors of Reno and Henderson, educators, health care professionals and more.

No surprise there, because the logic of the measure is rock-solid.

• • •

There are several ways to measure the failure of the War on Drugs, starting with its role in sending a grossly disproportionate number of African-Americans to prison.

Not far down the list is how the initiative affected marijuana supply and demand. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars in expenditures and decades of effort on drug eradication, millions of Americans continue to use the drug.

Look it up. The 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the most recent year available, shows that 22.2 million Americans had used the drug within the past month when they were surveyed. Compared to 2002, marijuana use was up among all age groups survey save for one: 12- to 17-year-olds. Among the U.S. population of 18- to 25-year-olds, 22 percent were users.

It’s time to try something else, and that’s decriminalizing recreational use of the drug.

Regulating the growth and distribution of marijuana will give responsible adults a legal way to obtain the drug, will yield tax revenue and will allow law enforcement to focus on more serious crimes.

It’s also led to the creation of thousands of jobs in states where it’s been adopted, and it would no doubt do the same here.

With the benefits come some concerns, including how legalizing the drug might make it more available to children and how it might affect public safety, particularly on roads.

On the issue of availability to minors, a positive sign comes from Colorado, where the largest study of youth in the state showed that teen use had declined since the state legalized it in 2013. As to the concern about traffic fatalities, studies have shown an increase in the number of drivers involved in fatal accidents in Colorado and Washington who had marijuana in their systems, but those studies did not indicate whether the drivers were at fault or were impaired.

Other issues raised by opponents can and should be examined by the Legislature should the ballot measure pass. Among them, the state should follow Colorado’s lead and pass legislation banning products sold in the form of people, animals or fruit, which children could mistake for candy.

Nevada is in good position to legalize, as it can craft responsible policy modeled on that of other states that have dealt with unintended consequences of decriminalizing the drug. We also know a thing or two about regulation, having set standards for oversight of the gaming industry.

Finally, the state has already taken steps toward legalization without the sky falling. In 2000, lawmakers downgraded possession of less than an ounce of marijuana from a felony to a misdemeanor, and the state successfully launched a medical marijuana industry in recent years.

Don’t misunderstand us: legalization won’t be all silver lining and no cloud. It won’t eliminate the black market for the drug, and it will require a massive expansion of the state’s marijuana regulation system.

But it will reduce demand for illegal sellers’ products, helping take the drug out of the alley and into regulated and taxed shops.

That’s a step in the right direction — and a step away from the disastrous War on Drugs.

Editor’s note: Brian Greenspun, the CEO, publisher and editor of the Las Vegas Sun, has an ownership interest in Essence Cannabis Dispensary.