When it comes to “gun violence”, the Left insists that the only real solution is to go after the guns themselves, as well as legal gun owners. But when it comes to illegal drug use, lefties generally take a more hands-off approach, and in some cases actively encourage the “safe” use of opioids, meth, and other illicit narcotics by giving users a place to get high while under the supervision of medical professionals.
This hypocritical stance has been on full display over the past few days, both in progressive strongholds like San Francisco and supposedly more moderate and middle of the road states like Minnesota, where Gov. Tim Walz recently signed several new gun control measures into law as part of an omnibus public safety bill. Just days after enacting new infringements on the right to keep and bear arms, the governor signed another omnibus measure that will set up safe spaces for drug users at taxpayer expense.
The bill directs the commissioner of human services to create grants for harm reduction organizations, saying that the funding “must be used to establish safe recovery sites that offer harm reductions services and supplies, including but not limited to safe injection spaces,” the text says. It provides more than $14.5 million in one-time funding that will be distributed annually until 2029, funding grants to create the facilities.
Emily Kaltenbach, senior director of criminal legal and policing reform at the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), said in a press release that the governor’s action “marks a critical turning point with Minnesota choosing a health approach over ineffective and harmful criminal approaches to respond to the overdose crisis moving forward.”
“With a stroke of his pen, Governor Walz has taken bold and courageous action by signing SF2934, which supports and creates a pathway for the state to officially sanction the use of overdose prevention centers,” she said. “Doing so recognizes the reality that people will use drugs and the need to keep them safe while providing access to addiction services and supports.”
In San Francisco, Mayor London Breed at least tried to talk tough about the open-air drug markets that have turned parts of the city into what amounts to unsupervised injection sites, but was shouted down by protestors who are just fine with the status quo.
On Tuesday, city leaders decided to hold the meeting outdoors in United Nations Plaza to highlight problems plaguing the area — including surging fentanyl overdoses — and to discuss potential solutions, KRON4 reported.
Breed and Supervisor Aaron Peskin took to the podium and proclaimed the city has been tolerating “illegal, out-of-control behavior for far too long.”
“Many San Franciscans do not feel safe,” Peskin said. “Brazen drug dealing and deteriorating street conditions have exacerbated a humanitarian crisis on our streets.”
But less than 10 minutes after the meeting began, it was cut short as the crowd hurled insults at the mayor and supervisors until they just walked away from the podium, according to KRON.
At one point, a woman threw a brick into the crowd and nearly struck a child, according to San Francisco police, who had been deployed to the plaza ahead of the meeting.
She was swiftly arrested and whisked away in handcuffs.
A livestream of the event cut to a black screen and background music before an image of Breed appeared, according to KRON.
It soon cut to the mayor, who continued delivering her remarks from inside City Hall.
Breed said that despite vastly expanded resources for drug addiction treatment, universal income and affordable housing, problems plaguing the city have not been solved and continue to spiral out of control.
“Compassion is killing people,” Breed said. “We have to change what is happening on the streets. It’s too easy getting drugs, they are dying under our watch, we have to do better.”
Breed seems more concerned about the staggering rise in drug overdose deaths in San Francisco than the residents who showed up to confront her on her planned crackdown. There have already been more than 200 overdose deaths in the city this year, ten times the number of homicides. Yet while San Franciscans protest Breed’s attempt to highlight the rampant drug sales and the crime that comes with it, even though Breed herself wants to establish safe injection sites in the city.
I have my issues with these sites, but what really galls me is the hypocrisy on display by Democrats like Walz and Breed. When it comes to “gun violence”, their answer is to go after legal gun owners and the right to keep and bear arms itself under the premise that only by reducing the number of guns in circulation and criminalizing the right to keep and bear arms can we reduce the number of carjackings, home invasions, random street robberies, gang violence, and mass shootings.
When it comes to drugs (which kill far more Americans each year than firearm-involved homicides, suicides, and accidents), however, the left’s harm reduction approach is all about enabling addicts to get their fix in the hopes of keeping them alive long enough that they’ll eventually seek treatment.
If Democrats took the same approach to reducing gun-involved deaths as they did drug-involved deaths, they’d be spending tens of millions of dollars opening public ranges, incentivizing folks to become firearms instructors, and ensuring that would-be gun owners had access to training and education on a regular basis. Instead, they write zoning laws that make it impossible for ranges to open for business, while demonizing gun ownership itself. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that the Left would rather provide a safe place to shoot up than somewhere to learn how to shoot safely. It’s the disturbing reality in cities like New York and San Francisco, but as Minnesota Democrats have shown us, the lunacy isn’t limited only to the coasts but an inherent part of the progressive world view.
