To temporarily take the side of gunphobes: Legalization reduces crime related to the buying, selling, and transportation of guns, but has little effect on the crimes with which guns are committed.

Drugs harm the user. Guns harm somebody else.

I feel like this question is based on a lack of understanding of what people mean when they say legalizing drugs reduces crime.

Legalizing drugs reduces the crime of drug possession simply because it is not a crime anymore. In exactly the same way, legalizing carrying a gun without a license reduces the crimes associated with carrying. That said, it does not necessarily reduce crime overall, especially without an increase in support for rehab and addiction services.

Portland, Oregon reduced the severity of possession crimes from a felony to a misdemeanor for schedule 1 and 2 drugs, and the result was a decrease in felonies, but an increase in misdemeanors proportional to the felony decrease, suggesting that overall arrests remained the same. While there was not a significant increase in crime overall, the growing popularity of fentanyl during that time did lead to an increase in deaths, and public opinion seemed to indicate that there was a change in the perception of public safety during that time even though the crime rate remained mostly stable. In my opinion, I think it probably had to do with an increase in the visible public consumption of drugs and the unpleasant realities that can come with that.

https://www.pdx.edu/news/psu-researchers-release-final-report-landmark-project-exploring-impacts-measure-110

A primary difference between drugs and guns is that drugs more often lead to the death or injury of the user while guns are more likely than drugs to lead to the death or injury of someone else. Furthermore, a gun enables the commission of a crime in that you can’t rob a liquor store with a joint, but you definitely can with a firearm.

That said, I live in an extremely gun friendly area and have carried both openly and concealed, yet the perception of “how safe is my neighborhood” seems to be swayed much more by the growing homeless/drug using population than the sight of a person with a gun on their hip does. I have never seen someone avert their gaze and pick up their pace for an open carrying person around here, but I see it all the time when they encounter a drug using homeless person. I know that is mostly anecdotal, but when paired with the data from Portland, I think it can be safely suggested that the perception of public safety has more to do with sights that make people uncomfortable over actual statistical crime data.

It is very possible to live in a place that is statistically safer, yet feels more dangerous, entirely due to the discomfort caused by witnessing human suffering, which is less of a factor when witnessing someone carrying a gun. Furthermore, decriminalizing drugs in one particular area can lead to an increase in drug users inhabiting that area, thus reducing the perception of public safety regardless of crime statistics.

Legalization of carrying a gun primarily leads to an increase in concealed carry, thus hiding the increased presence of guns from public view, and therefore leaving the perception of public safety unaltered. Concealed carry is more popular than open carry because it increases the tactical effectiveness of the firearm by not making you an obvious target of a criminal, so it is the preferred choice for most gun carriers, both legal and illegal. Contrastingly, it seems pretty hard to hide the fact that you’re totally zooted on fentanyl or methamphetamine.

Overall, I’d say that simple decriminalization does not have a significant effect on crime. Most drug users are not homeless or violent criminals, so they simply fly under the radar just like a concealed firearm carrier does. However, an increase in public intoxication or public discharge of a firearm does decrease the public perception of safety, regardless of actual statistical consequences, and politicians create a narrative based on that public opinion rather than using the true data about public harm.

What's the question here? These are two factual questions. You assess them with data, not speculation. The truth of one is completely independent of the other.

Drugs are generally a thing that people use consensually on themselves, usually taking care as to any consequences.

Guns are something you typically use non-consensually on someone else, usually when the consequences be damned.

I'm personally against gun prohibition, but the logic differentiation between gun and drug legalization is pretty glaring.

weapons are in a different class than other things. that being said lots of things are weapons and its really hard to limit them all. that being said some weapons are more destructive than others. would legalization of nuclear warheads reduce crime?

The difference is scope; e.g., the ease of murdering people.

If you drop a container of oxytocin in your house, you won't accidentally murder a child who lives next door.

If you drop a gun, there's a chance you might.

Drugs don't physically harm anyone other than the user, so if they are decriminalized it reduces crime (as using isn't criminal) even if it increases use.

Decriminalization of guns would reduce arrests for illegal carrying but increase the rate of carrying and when a gun is used, or stolen, it will usually result in a crime. Because people aren't just shooting at themselves, right?

It's a bad comparison. The better comparison would be murder by poisoning with drugs, which would indeed also be higher because of easier access.

In the USA we have an extrodinary abundance of guns and people who defend having a personal arsenal as 'stopping a bad guy'.

Thing is that you exchange one black market for firearms for the ability for potentially anyone to kill at scale and range with little notice or chance to avert it. The 'good guy with a gun' theory only serves a trivial role when you create a situation where mass availability makes any unstable person with a will much more likely to have access to one.

Edit: This from one who has a working skill with and has shot plenty of them, but not one who qualifies as the 'amosexual' sort who is impressed with how much lead can be put downrange per minute.

Australia's legislation around guns might be of interest, as it pertains to this discussion.

If drugs are legal, the parallel market for them ceases to exist. If you can buy a drug at a store, a shady dealer doesn’t need to fight for territory with the next guy over. This is a crime that ceases to be committed.

If a guy buys some weed and heads into a crowd, at most he can inconvenience some people with the smell.

If guns are legal and that same guy has a mental issue, that crowd can get shot. This is a crime that can more easily be committed by that legality.

And before armchair experts can come at me, just look at every other country where guns are not legal, and measure the amount of gun violence compared to that one where they are.

This is kind of an interesting thought experiment around laws in general. If you made guns illegal tomorrow you would certainly increase guns crimes because anyone who doesn't give up their guns is now committing a crime. Similarly all sales of guns would now be illegal and the demand for illegal guns would go way up resulting in more black market trade.

But the framing of the question leads to that conclusion. If what you are actually after is something more akin to "if legalizing drugs decreases violent crime then shouldn't legalizing guns also decrease violent crime?" This is more interesting in my opinion.

Now let's assume for a second that legalizing drugs does decrease violent crime (I do believe there I'd research that supports this). What crime is reduced? It is likely that crime around the drug trade itself is what is mostly reduced: you do not have as much cartel, gang, mob, and other organized crime entities around who are committing much of the violent crime. Drug users themselves are probably committing less of the crime than the actual distribution as using drugs is often times not an inherently violent act.

For guns the gun itself is a tool of violence. You cannot use a gun without committing a violent act. Now not all violent acts are violent crime, as target practice is not exactly illegal, but it is still violent. If you make manufacturing of guns illegal less will be manufactured which means less will be in existence therefore there is inherently less access to tools of violence. I'm sure the drug smuggling trade would introduce more violence as it would increase drastically. However the increase there may be smaller than the decrease of just having less guns in the world.

I guess the key difference is that guns are a tool of violence much more frequently than the use of an illicit substance is most likely.

The difference is how they're used. Drugs are mainly used recreationally, the crime is either in obtaining or making and selling the drugs. Weapons are mainly used as tools to commit crimes with, with a few exceptions for hunting, but most weapons like handguns aren't very suitable for hunting anyway.

It's one of those "critique of pure reason" things. The "logic" here is informed by epidemiology, not hypotheticals or dialectics or anything like that, so those methods of discovery may not be effective in refuting such evidence. In reality it's not as simple as legalize or don't legalize as a binary issue - theres an entire policy framework which comes with those things.

It's a crime to have drugs. It's not a crime to have guns. When you make something that is a crime not a crime, that's less crime.

If you want to understand guns, I'd recommend sociology not economics.

I've been around guns most of my life I just choose not to have them around anymore every time I've had one I've just had in my head what I considered close accidents mental lapses and I just decided it's not for me. put guns in people's hands that have that same capacity but the lack of self-awareness just results in tragedy

Drugs are made to make you feel good. Guns are made to kill.

For drugs there's demand because it's addictive. For guns there is demand because there are people to kill.

Should be obvious

I actually agree with you in principle: both should be legal and regulated. The extent of legality and regulation needs to be decided according to the use value/danger/harm of the item in question. Guns are generally much more dangerous than "party" drugs and so need to have stricter regulations.

Simply put, the crime from drugs arises only from society criminalizing the supply. People want to have a good time and where there is a demand a supply follows. But the demand doesn't go away because of the criminalization, just as you said. The substitute for illegal drugs (cocaine, heroin, ...) are legal drugs (alcohol, nicotine, ...). But as many users will tell you illegal drugs provide a whole different level of high. The substitute therefore is imperfect and we get to the situation we are at today.

Thinking about guns: Which demand do they satisfy? Security? Every nation on earth operates a police force that is trained in and tasked with upholing law and order (to which extend they do is a different debate). Therefore the average citizen does not need a weapon for self-defense. Skillfull competition? There are many other fields people can compete in. If it has to be loud and make a bang there is i.e. rocket assisted model aviation just to name one. Guns can therefore be reasonably substituted by other means.

Not really comparable imo. More guns = more crime, if I'm not mistaken.