Reading your and similar comments made me think about it, and I came to the conclusion that the commonality between drugs and guns is superficial.<p>Starting with what they have in common, I would say the restriction of either creates a black market, so that either allows criminal organizations to make a profit selling them. I think there is a difference even there though, since you can argue that criminals still benefit from loosening of gun regulations, because they would have easier access to guns. The primary buyers of illegal firearms are gangs and similar organizations, so that market is mainly there to support criminals who would not be able to obtain them without it. I don&#x27;t know if that would change with increased restrictions though - maybe some otherwise law-abiding people would be willing to buy illegal guns for self-defense. On the other hand, I can&#x27;t see how legalizing drugs could benefit crime organizations, except that maybe they could use their existing infrastructure to pivot into a legal drug business. Maybe that is a significant boon, but it doesn&#x27;t seem worse than any other &quot;legitimate business&quot; that funds criminal activity.<p>One of the main arguments in favor of drug legalization is quality control - street drugs often contain adulterants that are more debilitating than the drug itself. From what I know, this can&#x27;t apply to guns since illegal guns are typically originally-legal guns from ordinary gun manufacturers, and don&#x27;t have as many quality control issues.<p>And the way they generate harm is different too - drugs mainly harm the user, and guns mainly harm whoever the gun is used on (may sometimes be the same as the user). So drug legalization might be desirable so the harmful qualities of drugs could be reduced (as earlier), and not restricting guns could be desirable in that people will be able to defend themselves from other people with guns (criminals with guns, an oppressive government). This simplifies the issue a bit, and ignores other factors like drug research or hunting and other non-self-defense uses of guns, but I think it&#x27;s clear that there is significant room to agree with restricting one but not the other.<p>My post may reek of bias toward drug legalization, but hopefully you agree that it&#x27;s not as simple as &quot;If you want to loosen drug&#x2F;gun restrictions, you should also want to reduce gun&#x2F;drug restrictions&quot;.