Evil Biden wants to force Americans to register their guns and pay a high registration fee

Biden has a number of plans to discourage gun ownership.  Among them, he wants to raise the cost of gun ownership by holding gun manufacturer's responsible for any deaths or wounds caused by guns.  He also has a plan to force the registration of guns, which will be accompanied by a large registration fee.

Let us think about this as a matter of principle for a moment.  The right to defend oneself is a natural right and also an explicit constitutional right.  Freedom of speech is a natural right and also an explicit constitutional right.

Let us suppose that someone asks you if you think the person they want to marry will be a good lifetime partner for them.  You, as a friend, answer yes.  The marriage ends in divorce.  The divorced partner claims you are partially responsible for the suffering and perhaps financial losses they incurred due to the failure of their marriage.  Should they have the right to sue you for recovery of their losses?  Imagine if they could do this, what this would do to your ability to exercise your right to freedom of speech.  Whatever the actual impact your advice on the proposed marriage might have had, it was the responsibility of the individual receiving that advice to evaluate whether they should marry.  It was the responsibility of the married person to make the marriage work or if they could not do so, to realize that the mistakes or lack of effort were their own.

The gun manufacturer has no significant voice in how the gun they make is used.  It can be used rationally or irrationally.  It can be used responsibly or irresponsibly.  To hold the gun manufacturer responsible for the use of the gun is as nonsensical as holding the marriage advisor responsible for his advice.  Actually, I would be inclined to think that bad advice on marriage would make an easier case for responsibility for harm against the advisor.  At least the marriage advisor presumably has some knowledge of the two people whose marriage is being considered.

Gun registration and fees:  If the government can in principle claim the power to make you register as a gun owner and pay a high fee for doing so, what is to keep the government from next forcing everyone to register for the right to exercise freedom of speech and pay a high registration fee for doing so?  After all, if one right can be controlled, limited, and taxed if it is to be exercised then why would the government defer from doing the same to other rights -- freedom of speech included.  Just as the Democrat Socialist Party thinks guns can be used harmfully by hoodlums, so does that host of parasites believe that Deplorables do great harm with their speech.

Do you think the party of slavery, the early KKK, Jim Crow laws, the Woodrow Wilson second wave of the KKK, segregation, the welfare dependency of many American Blacks, mandatory government school holding pens minus education, that declared Trump voters Deplorables, and the party that has always thought it moral to steal elections, would not desire such control over our freedom to exercise our individual rights that all of them will not disappear unless we throw our minds, hearts, and souls into defending every one of them?

Making America Great and Donald Trump

America is great when the American People are free to exercise their broad and sovereign rights to life, liberty, property, self-ownership, and the pursuit of their own happiness.  There is no greater value than that of enjoying these liberties.  Donald Trump is a materialist who does not seem to have any concept of this.

I do not like Donald Trump.  I do not like how he has practiced business.  He has been a crowing crony capitalist who has used subsidies and eminent domain extensively in his business dealings.  Several of his businesses went bankrupt, though this happened just after he sold them to suckers.  His business ethics has been immoral.  His success has substantially come at the expense of others, not often enough in the form of mutually beneficial trades and too often at the expense of unwilling taxpayers.  The state of New Jersey, both under Corzine and Christie, has poured subsidy monies into the gambling industry in Atlantic City, to Trump's great benefit.  That industry is failing badly and at the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of New Jersey taxpayers.  I do not like the meanness in Donald Trump.  Decent people do not make fun of other people's afflictions.  Now, I am not politically correct, but if you do not like how someone else looks, keep it to yourself.  A man who would be President ought to be a gentleman and one can easily be a gentleman while telling the truth about the many issues that government must deal with and about the tasks it should leave to the private sector.

Trump has been in favor of a universal, government-provided health care system.  That idea is a huge assertion of collective ownership of every individual by the state.  He says he will repeal ObamaCare, but there is no mention of this on his website.

His website says he is interested in the following reforms and provides some information on what he plans to do:

• U.S. - China Trade Reform
• Veterans Administration Reforms
• Tax Reform
• Second Amendment Rights
• Immigration Reform

On U.S. - China trade reforms, what is written is not as bad as the overt trade protectionism Trump advocates on the campaign trail, but it also fails to note that the primary reason the opening of new trade markets around the world has not led to the growth of the American economy is because the American government does not allow American businesses to be competitive.  He notes the importance of corporate tax reductions, but only after implying that bad trade negotiations caused job loses in America.  The job losses in America are due to excessive taxes, paperwork, and regulations that American businesses are hobbled with, thanks to Washington.  Business expenses are very high in America compared to many other countries in the world.  To compete, we need to be free to take full advantage of our design and innovation capabilities, while shedding governmental burdens that provide no or insufficient benefits.  We should be taking advantage of our abundance of inexpensive and reliable energy, not trying to make it more expensive as Obama has done.  We should be taking advantage of our great banking and financial companies, not smothering most of them in disabling requirements under Dodd-Frank so-called reform.  We should not be raising the cost of business with governmental dictates of minimum wages, paid leave benefits, the highest corporate and personal taxes in most of the developed nations, ObamaCare, NLRB rulings favoring forced unionization, and EPA regulations based on exaggerated claims of mercury or catastrophic man-made global warming. 

The Veterans Administration certainly needs reform.  Trump would make a key correction by allowing veterans more treatment in non-Veterans Administration hospitals and doctor offices.  He does not actually note that the many ills of the VA are endemic in government operations and would be propagated to other government attempts to control medical care.

Tax Reform is horribly overdue and the Trump plan is a pretty good one, with the exception that he would exempt single people from paying any income tax if they make less than $25,000 a year and married couples if they make $50,000 or less.  This gives them no skin in the cost of government and I do not think this is a good idea.  They should pay something.  It seemed he was going to outlaw corporation inversions overseas, but upon further reading he is really saying he will make them unnecessary.  He will continue to tax corporation earnings abroad, which I think is bad, but he will give them the credit to paying taxes abroad, so the U.S. tax of 15% will actually only be paid as the difference of the foreign tax and the US 15% should the foreign tax be less than 15%.  That is not bad at all.  His tax reform would allow a great leap of growth in the American economy.

On the Second Amendment:

The Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right that belongs to all law-abiding Americans. The Constitution doesn’t create that right – it ensures that the government can’t take it away. Our Founding Fathers knew, and our Supreme Court has upheld, that the Second Amendment’s purpose is to guarantee our right to defend ourselves and our families. This is about self-defense, plain and simple.

It’s been said that the Second Amendment is America’s first freedom. That’s because the Right to Keep and Bear Arms protects all our other rights. We are the only country in the world that has a Second Amendment. Protecting that freedom is imperative.

That is excellent and is the only place I know of in which Trump has spoken of individual rights and the need to maintain constitutional law.

On Immigration Reform, he is apparently not going to send the Army into Mexico to make them pay for the wall at the southern border.

Mexico must pay for the wall and, until they do, the United States will, among other things: impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing cards – of which we issue about 1 million to Mexican nationals each year (a major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of entry to the United States from Mexico [Tariffs and foreign aid cuts are also options].  We will not be taken advantage of anymore.  

But he is going to try to control immigrants seeking jobs that he claims Americans need.  Companies will have less say in who they hire under his plan. Fewer highly skilled foreign workers will be allowed to immigrate.  This is a short-sighted example of populism.

There are too many other issues he has not given a plan to treat.  I do not have great certitude in his keeping his word either, especially given his history of many changes of mind.  He comes out of a primarily Democrat Socialist New York/New Jersey background and he played those Democrat politicians to the hilt.  Perhaps he was just using them.  He does pride himself as a manipulator.  Is he also manipulating those who vote for him?  Will he turn on those who vote for him now as he has turned on the Democrat Socialists he supported a short while ago, perhaps because they were then useful to his businesses?  Perhaps his voters now are only a useful means for him acquiring great power?  Donald Trump is a vapor.  He has no consistency.  He has no substance that one can perceive in his speeches.  Will his website policy statements also become vapor when he has the power he wants?

But these few plans that are given some substance are better than I had expected.  This is good, because it is looking more and more as though this man may be the next President of the United States of America.  I still have concerns that his temperament is much more suited to that of a dictator than to the presidency of a constitutionally limited government in the U.S.A.  I also suspect that these policy positions are written by advisers who understand much more than Trump does and they may be shoved aside once he is in power. After all, he thinks he is better than anyone else, just as Obama does.  We can expect much more arrogance in the extensive use of power should Trump become President.  And how many months will it take for him as President to subject each and every one of us to is childish name-calling?

The Aggressive Maryland Ban on "Assault" Firearms Must Defend Itself Again

The Maryland law banning 45 types of firearms as assault weapons and high-capacity magazines was ruled constitutional in a lower court ruling, despite the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution.  The U. S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has now ruled in a 2-1 decision written by Chief Judge William B. Traxler Jr. that the lower court ruling must be based on a more stringent legal standard.  The Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh, Democrat, helped to pass the law when he was a state senator.  He remains an ardent supporter of the arms ban.  He claims it is just common sense that the 2nd Amendment does not give people a right to own military-style assault weapons.

Assault weapons by name imply an intention to use the weapon in an offensive, rather than a defensive, manner.  Yet, in any fight for one's life, the fight will tend to oscillate back and forth between defense and offense.  Yes, one may be defending one's home and family, but to do so one cannot simply block blow after blow and expect that one will be forever successful in blocking the next blow.  At some point, one has to find an instant to move to the offensive and deliver a knock-out blow to end the contest.  The sooner this is accomplished, the less the threat to one's loved ones and values.  The Democrats never seem to understand this.

There is no clear distinction between an assault and a defensive weapon.  There is also no clear distinction between a military weapon and a defensive weapon.  The dissenting judge on the Appeals Court decision, Robert B. King, claimed the Maryland law banning assault weapons banned "exceptionally lethal weapons of war."  Now I ask you, what other kind of weapon would you want to have while defending your family and home?  A pocket knife with a 3-inch blade is not sufficient to the task of protecting one's values.  Morally, how can it be wrong to defend your family and home with the best tools available for doing so?

When the 2nd Amendment was approved by the states of the new Republic and became effective on 15 December 1791, many Americans lived on the frontier and were under frequent threat of attack by Indians or even the British who still occupied Canada and various forts in the Midwest (then the Northwest), despite the Ohio Territory having been ceded to the Americans by the 1783 Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolutionary War.  The Northwest Indian War, also called Little Turtle's War, lasted from 1785 - 1795, with the British supplying weapons to the Indians.  Not so long after, the British and their Indian allies launched a brutal attack upon the Americans in the War of 1812.  Throughout this period, it was clearly a common sense necessity that many an American must arm himself with the best weapons of war he could afford.  Those weapons were not necessarily any different than those used by the meager official armed forces of the federal government.  The common American could own the best musket and the best rifle available.  A few even owned cannons.  Some shipowners owned rather heavily armed sailing ships.  The right to do so was then protected by the 2nd Amendment.

The Maryland law banning so-called assault weapons was opposed in court by a group of gun store owners and individuals who claim the prohibited firearms are not military weapons.  I consider this a concession that should not be made.  The military and individuals use weapons, and may do so on a moral basis, to protect persons and property.  There is no rational reason to deny individuals a weapon simply because it might be used by the military.  The only reason to deny an individual the use of a weapon is if the individual has used a weapon to initiate harm to others, has threatened others with initiated force, or has shown a well-established inability to act rationally.

Yes, there are weapons that one may not be likely to need to defend one's home and family.  Bazookas and tanks are not likely to be useful, unless one lives very near the Mexican border and has to protect one's ranch from drug and human traffickers.  Some individuals may simply think it is cool to restore a WWII tank.  That seems a very reasonable hobby to me.  There is surely nothing in the 2nd Amendment, the conditions of the period when it was added to the Constitution by the people, or in basic rational morality that argues against individuals arming themselves with the best weapons they may choose to own.

There are some weapons which may be prohibited to individuals.  For instance, weaponized anthrax or corrosive nerve gases are simply be too dangerous for even well-intended people to handle and preserve without endangering others.  They are dangerous enough that anyone who did want to own them would fall into the category of being unable to behave rationally and in so doing, posing a threat to others. It is very difficult for even a large organization, such as the military, to handle such weapons safely.  In fact, the U.S. military does not even use them when they have them because they are too dangerous to use.

Representative John Sarbanes Replies About Gun Controls

Sadly, people who do not believe in the 2nd Amendment are far too common in American society.  Most of them believe in the ubiquitous use of government force to dictate value choices and to micromanage the lives of individuals unknown to them and about whom they do not care even a smidgeon.

The way of life of a criminal depends upon the ability to initiate the use of force.  Having dangerous weapons is at the center of his profession.  Most Americans are very busy with their careers in the peaceful private sector in which force is not initiated.  We have two major dangers we face.  One is the individual or small gang initiator of force.  The other is the huge gang initiator of force which is Big Government grown well-beyond the scope of its legitimate powers by the constant refusal to recognize its constitutional limits and the guiding philosophy of government expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

The way the state government of Maryland enacts the sentiments of John Sarbanes is to put up many barriers to "dangerous weapons" acquisition and ownership.  The barriers are huge for busy people living peaceful lives, but in need of protection from those who initiate the use of force.  Those barriers are manifestly ineffective in keeping "dangerous weapons" out of the hands of criminals and busybody authoritarian politicians and their government employees. 

In 2013, the murder rate in Maryland was 6.5/ 100,000 people.  In the USA as a whole, it was 4.49/ 100,000 people.  So Maryland's already onerous barriers to "dangerous weapons" are not working, at least not to protect its citizens from murder.  To be sure, this conclusion does rest on the assumption that Marylanders are not just bad people compared to other Americans.  That may be bad people can be argued because they vote pretty consistently for Democrat authoritarians!  In fact, the very time-consuming and onerous barriers to gun ownership is very likely a major contributing cause to the high murder rate in Maryland.

Maryland Gun Control Infringement of the Right to Self-Defense

Oh, the many pleasures of corresponding with one's representatives in the state legislature and the federal government as an exercise in the right to petition one's grievances ends only in frustration.  One can always count on a Progressive Elitist standard viewpoint from these representatives, at least in the most un-free state of Maryland, known most erroneously as the Free State.  This state, long ago, provided perhaps the best unit to fight in the American Revolutionary War.  At that time, there sure was no prohibition against owning a military-style weapon.

The Progressive Elitists of Maryland are most united in the belief that while one may have a right not have one's hunting rifle prohibited, a weapon designed for self-defense is to be absolutely prohibited.  In this Progressive Elitist viewpoint, no infringement means only that any barrier an individual should have to overcome to exercise a right must not amount to an absolute prohibition, except in some cases.

This is the response I received to my letter in opposition to the latest effort of the state of Maryland to infringe the right to bear arms from my delegate Anne Kaiser in the Maryland House of Delegates:

Thank you for writing to my office and voicing your opposition to SB281:  Firearm Safety Act of 2013, introduced by Senate President Mike Miller on behalf of Governor Martin O’Malley.  This legislation provides a comprehensive plan of reforms to make people safer and reduce preventable gun violence.  It includes provisions regarding gun licensing and fingerprinting; gun safety; and mental health safeguards and services.

Specifically, the provisions of SB 281 bans the sale of military-style assault weapons; limits magazine capacity to 10 rounds (the previous limit was 20) and requires licensing, fingerprinting, and safety training to purchase a handgun.  These provisions should reduce “straw purchases” (where someone with a record gets a friend to buy a gun on their behalf) of both assault style weapons and handguns which over time should reduce the number of illegal guns on our streets while also promoting sensible, responsible gun ownership.

Further, this initiative creates safeguards to keep guns away from people who may be a danger to themselves or others due to mental illness, while also facilitating unprecedented levels of information sharing among federal and state partners for background checks.  This bill improves mental health services in Maryland by establishing a Center for Excellence on Early Intervention for serious mental illness and expands Maryland’s Crisis Intervention Teams, Crisis Response Services, and Mental Health First Aid.  Also, this bill establishes a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene led Task Force to Improve Continuity of Care for Individuals in the Community Mental Health System.

Despite characterizations of this bill and those of us who voted for it, I fully support our 2^nd amendment rights.  I place our right to bear arms right alongside our freedom of speech, of a free press and our freedom of religion.  With each of these guaranteed freedoms comes rights and with each right comes responsibility.  And with each responsibility, comes reasonable regulations.

I believe that this bill crystallizes that responsibility in important, meaningful and manageable ways.  Crucially, the new law does not do the following:  it does not prohibit lawful citizens from obtaining or owning a handgun and it does not require additional licensing procedures for hunting rifles and shotguns.  The new law does not force citizens who lawfully possessed an assault weapon prior to the bill’s passage to surrender their weapon or to register it.  Furthermore, it does not require current lawful gun owners to retroactively obtain a license.

Your views are important to me and I appreciate that you have taken the time to write to me.  Please do not hesitate to contact me during the session should any other concerns arise.

 Very truly yours,

 Anne R. Kaiser

The exercise of a right comes with only the responsibility not to violate the equal sovereign rights of other individuals.  It does not come with a responsibility to expend time and effort to prove that one has such character as may be in popular approval by the government.  I should not have to prove that I will not somehow and at some future date violate the rights of others.  As for gun safety, if I already know that (as a veteran), why should I have to take a course from some state-licensed safety instructor at great expense and at the cost of valuable time?  This is an example of the state very much infringing my right to self-defense.

The 2nd Amendment clearly says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  Note that no infringement means that there shall be no barriers.  It does not mean that the barriers are such that they can be overcome and are not absolute prohibitions.

Furthermore, the prohibition on military style weapons makes no sense whatever.  The most essential reason one has a right to arm oneself for is self-defense.  Both the prohibition against so-called military style weapons and the limit to 10-round magazines are fundamental infringements on the right to self-defense.  The military uses the weapons it uses for defense.  I would use any weapon I might have for defense.  The reason we have a military is simply as an extension of our individual right to self-defense and the fact we have a military does not deprive us of any part of our right to self-defense.  Note also that this is an explicit prohibition and not a barrier which can be overcome with sufficient effort.

It is noteworthy that Anne Kaiser claims that she holds the right to bear arms as dearly as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.  Logically this means that the exercise of these critical freedoms can also be infringed by the requirement to be fingerprinted, forced to take lessons in their safe use, and that many statements and beliefs can be prohibited so long as some are allowed with due licensing of the individual.  In fact, Kaiser explicitly claims that the state can regulate freedom of speech, press, and religion.  Perhaps initially only the mentally ill and felons will be denied the license to exercise freedom of speech, the press, and religion, but I am sure we can count on the Progressive Elitists to expand the class of people denied these rights with time.

Of course, in the eyes of the Progressive Elitist, a person of the Tea Party persuasion is mentally ill.  Many of them have said this explicitly.  Since most psychiatrists seem to be Progressive Elitists, the state will have no problem finding one who will attest that someone who challenges the power of unlimited government is suffering a mental problem.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 26.2% of the U.S. population has a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.  Does this mean that the state of Maryland will deny licenses to 26.2% of the applicants because they are claimed to have a mental illness?  Probably not, since most such cases have not been diagnosed, but given the infringements of this bill, will one have to have extensive testing for mental illness before being licensed in the near future.  After all, a precedent will have been established.  How extreme and of what type must the mental illness be before one is denied a license?  Yes, she talks of being a threat to oneself or others, but this is pretty speculative stuff and does not the Precautionary Principle so beloved by the Progressive Elitists require a very low bound on the possibility of danger?  If one were ever diagnosed as having a mental illness, would one be forever denied a license to bear arms?  Given how dear the right to bear arms is for Anne Kaiser, how long before the same problems arise to get that license for the exercise of freedom of speech?  You must have much more faith in the goodwill of government than I do to feel at all comfortable with these issues.  Ignorance of history or total irrationality would be a precondition for such faith.

As for the new mental health bureaucracy this law will set up in the state of Maryland, I can only imagine the horrors to come.

It is comforting to know that more than half the number of votes needed to pass this bill in the Maryland House of Delegates may have been cast by the 26.2% of the delegate population with diagnosable mental illnesses.  The remainder of those for this bill may have been voted into office with most of the votes from the 26.2% of Maryland voters who are estimated by the very Progressive Elitist National Institute of Mental Health to have diagnosable mental illnesses.  To be sure, such mental illnesses may be far more common among the Maryland Delegates than among the population at large.

The violation of individual rights by the state of Maryland and by the federal government has become a habit.  There is nothing one can trade one's basic individual rights for that is worth the trade.  You should note that the Declaration of Independence informs us that the only legitimate function of government is the protection of individual rights.  Governments that violate those rights become morally illegitimate no matter how many popular votes the politicians may collect.   Evil thrives in the state of Maryland because collectivist politicians here collect hordes of votes.

The Maryland House of Delegates is coming to help us exercise our responsibilities.  Be afraid ...  no, be terrified!

Tough Massachusetts Gun Controls Ignored by Tsarnaev Brothers and Criminals Generally

Massachusetts passed a very tough gun control law in 1998.  The results have thoroughly pleased the supporters of tough gun control laws and those who wish to infringe upon the right of self-defense protected by the 2nd Amendment.  In 1998, there were nearly 1.5 million gun owners in Massachusetts.  The draconian gun control law of 1998 reduced the number of registered gun owners to only 200,000 by June of 2002.

Of course, the 65 murders with firearms in 1998 in Massachusetts became 122 murders with firearms in 2011.  The number of armed robberies increased by 20.7% and aggravated assaults increased by 26.7%.  And, surprise, surprise, the Boston Marathon bombing Tsarnaev brothers' revolvers and rifle were not registered.  The adjacent states with less strict gun control laws have seen their crime rates go down.

Of course the strict gun control advocates claim that the reason for the high crime rates in Massachusetts is the failure of the lower crime rate states to enact stricter gun controls!  Some people are really, really unable to draw logical conclusions from their observations.  Have not those who are better armed often preyed upon those who are less well armed throughout human history?  Sometimes it was roving bands of marauders, sometimes it was the local warlord, sometimes it was the criminals who defied the law and armed themselves to the teeth, and sometimes it was the government itself that preyed upon those who would not or could not defend themselves.

Obama and Bill Clinton Not Allowed to Own Guns

It is a popular belief that current gun laws should be better enforced.  Federal law already makes it illegal for any felon or anyone who has illegally used any controlled substance from owning a gun.  The penalty is five years of imprisonment, the same draconian punishment leveled at those who refuse to consent to having the ownership of their own bodies taken over by the government under the collectivist ObamaCare law.

Felons are a very broad category which more and more includes people who committed no crime of violence or even no crime against any known individual at all.  Federal and state laws have more and more made people felons for violating vague, unknown, and irrational laws and regulations aimed at anyone trying to make a living.  Business owners and business managers are particularly likely to be victims of such wrongheaded laws.  Those who have have been convicted under such specious laws are not allowed to own guns.

The prohibition of gun ownership to anyone who has illegally used a controlled substance is another draconian act that has the consequence that at least 40 million Americans are likely prohibited from owning guns if it were enforced.  Among those who are prohibited by federal law from owning guns are:

Obama
George W. Bush
Bill Clinton

Of course in our lawless land in which many people are deemed too important for the law to be enforced upon them, these people would not actually be denied a gun permit should they request one.  Law enforcement would definitely turn its head for them.  But, in a nation in which the use of a prohibited substance lands many others in jail, prevents them from holding many jobs, or is the excuse of law enforcement agencies to take their homes, cars, boats, and land from them without the need to get a conviction, this is a giant hypocrisy.  It is an act of great injustice.

Far from needing still more gun ownership prohibition and registration laws, we need to repeal some of the wrongheaded laws we already have that unreasonably infringe upon our sovereign and equal right to protect ourselves from harm by others, including tyrannical governments.  More of us than are presently allowed should be able to acquire the best in personal protection weapons so that we can protect ourselves, our families, and our friends and neighbors from the violence that the state proves unable and unwilling to prevent.  Proposed restrictions against large capacity, actually just reasonable capacity, magazines and semi-automatic fire weapons are clear infringements of our right to protect ourselves.

Before you know it, Obama will dictatorially rule that the Founding Fathers only intended the citizenry to own muzzle-loaded muskets and that will be all we will be allowed to own.  Provided of course that we have not become felons for violating some line buried in hundreds of thousands of pages of federal laws and regulations or that we have not ever used a controlled substance illegally.