If we ban nuclear weapons, only criminals will have nuclear weapons...

Lilek's NewsHouse piece this week looks at nuclear proliferation.

I liked his conclusion:

Apparently it is better for North Korea and Iran to sell nukes to America's enemies than for us to use nukes to destroy these weapons before they're built. We nuke their bomb factories, they nuke our cities -- in the end they're both the same, no?

No. They're not. And even if they were, what would you rather lose -- credibility or New York?

It's interesting how weapons on any scale seem to produce the same reaction from those on the left - restrict the people who most easily can be restricted from having the weapon, despite the fact that another group that has the same weapon is the one whom causes damage with it. That's gun control in a nutshell - make it harder for anyone to own a gun. This means law-abiding people have a harder time getting guns, but doesn't affect criminals, who aren't buying their guns from their friendly neighborhood gun store, but from some guy on a street corner.

The same logic is applied to nuclear weapons. Iran and North Korea have them, and they pose a grave danger. So the reaction is for the United States to get rid of their nuclear weapons. Not because it will solve the problem of crazy dictators having nukes and not being afraid to use them, but it will make people feel like they are doing something.

That, and a sincere dislike and distrust of the United States by those who advocate nuclear disarming. Because these people don't see a difference between the government of the United States and North Korea. The probably figure that, after all, Bush and Kim Jung-Il are both kinda, you know, creepy.

But the US isn't North Korea, and whatever flaws we have both in the past and in the present, they are nothing compared to the flaws of Iran and NK. And us getting rid of our nuclear weapons will have a perverse effect - it puts us in more danger because it means that our enemies will have the weapons that we don't.