Guns are the 21st Century version of the 19th century Opium Wars

"Illegal guns, illegal guns, illegal guns drive violence,” Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.

Even though the barbarians may not necessarily intend to do us harm, yet in coveting profit to an extreme, they have no regard for injuring others. Let us ask, where is your conscience? - Lin Zexu (1839), Letter to the British Monarch asking the Opium flooding into China be stopped.

The Opiate of the Masses is not, as it was claimed Religion but, a false sense of Power and Security. Guns provide many with a flase belief that they are in charge of their lives and the world overall.

I know some gun ethusiantists. They firmly assert that when the day comes and the Tyrannical Government comes to steal their guns "they" may win but there will be more of "them" laid out dead after they've taken the last full measure.

While, there are a small kernel of Gun Nuts who have an deep longing to unleash their inner demons and engage in an orgy of gun fueled murder and bloodshed of liberals and Government bureaucrats while believing they are the Righteous, most gun owners don't want this but are ready to defend themselves and their rights.

It is nothing more than a false sense of power. And it's embraced by the Gun Nuts for the same reason that people turn towards drugs.

Which leads us to the Opium Wars of the 1800's. 

As Europe began to exert dominance over the world in the 1700's, the British East India Company was the World Trading Powerhouse, especially in Asia and the Orient.

Of course, other European Powers had interests and control, the Dutch, the Portuguese had Macau, the French had some interest in China and the Spanish Empire had the Philippines, but the EIC was the original Corporation which had the backing of the British Crown and Military.

While most of the world succumbed to the British model of trade, invasion and subjugation, trade with China proved a tremedous drain on the British Treasury.

The Chinese Empire with over 3000 years of contiunous history (at least theoretically) demanded silver in exchange for the Silk, Tea, Porcelain and other resources they traded with EIC and Europe.

Thus the British hit on a brilliant idea. Having conquered India, British merchants began to flood the Chinese countryside with Opium made in India, reversing the flow of silver. The situation became so bad for the Qing Empire and their people that after failed edicts and bans the Qing Emperor requested a direct appeal be made to Queen Victoria (it never reached her) to stop the drug importation and spare his people the harmful effects of drug addiction.

But, what happened instead was the importation of Opium increased every year (in the mid-1800's it reached the same amount as was produced in the world in 2000), and the British engaged in the Imperialist Wars which resulted in the imposition of Trade treaties extremely favourable to British "interests".

The Opium Wars were bad for China but, they directly led to the Taiping Rebellion, the bloodiest Civil War in World History, the death and slaughter wasn't eclipsed until World War 2.

Today we are facing analogous problems. The Gun Crazies are akin to the Opium Addicts and the Firearm Manufacturers flood this Nation (and others) with their Guns, not caring about the death and mayhem their product is causing, are very much similar to the opium importing East India Company and other merchants.

Firearm Makers also have their political wing, the NRA and other Gun Lunatics, to help enforce humiliating treaties on the American people forcing all of us to live under their* interpretation of the Second Amendment. 

But, again, why do people turn to Guns? Because of the feelings the gun ownership evokes, the brain chemistry it triggers and the false power and control, which many America feel slipping away from them, it rekindles.

The gang bangers in Chicago are the prime example of false power and control. Leaving aside whatever the circumstances which led them to their current situation, the acquisition of the gun has given them the belief that they are powerful and need to be feared and respected.

When they lash out at rival gang bangers or track down some "punk" whose disrespected them it's the feeble lashing out of those who are, in reality, powerless. Nonetheless, their blind random shot selection has real and terrible consequences.

Similarly, those Gun Nuts who've taken to parading around in the open with their whizz-bang tactically outfitted AR-15s or wave their piece around when someone dares to tell them to stop driving recklessly or shoot at cars which dare to touch their sacred driveways are the same as the Chicago-land criminals and filled with the same false sense of power.

Additionally, the "responsible" gun owners who can't be inconvenienced to properly secure their weapons are like the deluded denizens of an Opium Den. Lost in the fog of their delusions they leave their weapons unlocked, uncased, loaded and readily accessible and the result is an accidental shooting of a child.

Thus, right now we are doomed to suffer more Mass Shootings, more preventable deaths, more gun murders, more road rage shoot-outs because we're hooked on the Gun, the most dangerous drug ever made.

*- the view of the Second Amendment that 350 million guns and more every year should be readily available and no restrictions of any kind can stop an American from buying a gun are the views of the Firearm Makers who don't care about what their guns do as long as more are sold.