The Twenty-first Amendment (Amendment XXI) to the United States
Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution, which had mandated nationwide Prohibition. (Wikipedia)
When the 18th amendment outlawed alcoholic beverages in the US, the
proponents of that amendment had excellent reasons.
Of course, the 18th was made null and void by the 21st, and for
excellent reasons as well. Prohibition had created worse problems
than it solved.
But the reasons for passing the 18th Amendment are as valid today as
they were when the amendment was passed. The problems which the 18th
Amendment addressed have not gone away. In many respects, those
problems have multiplied.
It is no longer valid to say that Prohibition would fail again, as it
did in the 1920s. Governmental power is far more expansive now than
it was when the Treasury Department nailed Capone on tax violations
(he was not convicted of his more deadly crimes).
To those who would repeal the Second Amendment, I say, first repeal
the 21st. However many people's lives are ruined by guns, surely you
must recognize that far more lives are destroyed by the ravages of
alcohol. Alcohol related traffic deaths are only one fraction of the
overall devastation caused by alcohol. Child neglect, industrial
accidents, cirrhosis of the liver--- the list goes on and on.
And however many problems would be caused by a renewal of Prohibition,
imagine the problems that will be caused when you disarm the general
public and leave us more vulnerable to criminals.
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