Not hard to parse this one out.<p>Government doesn&#x27;t like encryption because it limits their ability to track&#x2F;monitor people. Tracking is only supposed to apply to foreign actors but in a nation of immigrants everybody is essentially treated as a threat. compared to traditional ineffective methods (ie investigation, witness testimony, etc) of law enforcement tracking provides objective evidence of wrongdoing and removes human error from the equation.<p>Unfortunately, in such an overly litigious society where it&#x27;s nearly impossible for people to live their day-to-day lives without knowingly&#x2F;unknowingly breaking the law, tracking becomes just another government funded system of subversion.<p>Industry hates encryption because of crypto currencies. The banking industry has worked very hard to centralize it&#x27;s power and eliminate competition. Fortunately, for them there&#x27;s no alternative. So there&#x27;s no way for people to objectively measure whether or not using one standard, centralized, and strictly controlled&#x2F;manipulated currency is a good thing. By default, we delegate an unbelievable amount of power&#x2F;control to a very small and centralized group of individuals on the basis of &#x27;trust us&#x27;. Previously, there was no alternative so people quit asking whether or not that&#x27;s a <i>really</i> bad idea.<p>Crypto currencies aren&#x27;t a threat to the current system of currency control. Rather they&#x27;re an existential threat to the concept of central currency control as a whole.<p>When the driving influence of government need is combined with the financial backing of industry, laws get passed. Whether or not they&#x27;re detrimental to the individual rights of the people.<p>Guns have no such problems. They&#x27;re guaranteed by the constitution. A ton of government influence&#x2F;resources comes directly from special interest groups that focus on gun rights.<p>Industry is making a killing from all of the panic caused by the threat of removing gun ownership rights.<p>Even <i>if</i> gun ownership magically became illegal overnight it would be impossible to enforce. They couldn&#x27;t get the people to give up drinking alcohol during prohibition despite overwhelming support from the majority conservative Christians community at the time. What do you expect will happen when they go up against the &#x27;you can take my guns, when you can pry them from my cold dead hands&#x27; crowd.<p>Attempting to outlaw guns in the US is the equivalent of the government declaring war on the people. No matter how you spin the moral imperative, it&#x27;ll never happen.<p>So why do people bother debating it? Because there&#x27;s an unbelievable amount of money, power, influence that can be made from stirring up panic over morally contentious issues.<p>Politicians get a ton of exercise by grandstanding on their personal moral&#x2F;liberty driven platforms. Industry rakes in a ton of money by capitalizing on the uncertainty caused by the panic. The media has a hey day over all the controversy and publishes endless streams of analysis, reactions, counter reactions, speculation, etc. It&#x27;s a modern day bonanza for everybody involved.<p>Except the people suffer because all the chaos creates and perpetuates a general culture of anger and mistrust between people divided on arbitrary lines. Cultural beliefs are very difficult to objectively measure because they last an entire generation. Without a central figurehead to influence the direction of a culture, individuals very rarely if ever change their position once it&#x27;s established.<p>I can&#x27;t think of a better strategy to divide, subvert, and conquer an entire population of people. Divide people&#x27;s moral identity in enough ways that suddenly they have nothing in common. All it takes is a few morally ambiguous issues and the backing of the media. The effects last a generation so a minor investment pays dividends for many decades.<p>It&#x27;s basically a thought virus for entire populations of people. Only those who are capable of thinking&#x2F;acting independently of their personal moral beliefs are immune to it&#x27;s effects.