Are you sure alcohol is far more regulated than guns are?
Yes. For example, you would be allowed to possess a loaded firearm in a car which I am driving in many more states than you could legally possess an open alcoholic beverage in a car which I am driving.
Going further, there are more places where you would be allowed to carry a loaded firearm in public (both openly and concealed) than there are places where you are allowed to openly carry alcoholic beverages in public.
If I have a large personal collection of firearms, I can sell those firearms legally without facing , even here in Illinois. I cannot, however, legally sell a large personal collection of alcohol without facing some severe consequences and punishment for selling alcohol without a license.
Alcohol
is more regulated than guns. Just because there is no background check to purchase alcohol (although there is an identity check, and purveyors of alcohol can face severe penalties if they fail to perform these identity checks or if they perform them incompetently) doesn't mean that it is less regulated.
I'm not calling for prohibition of alcohol.
I'm asking if there should be further alcohol control.
The effects of alcohol spread farther and the benefits, are superficial at best.
Each local municipality has the right to enact such control if they so choose, and many do. There are quite a few "dry" counties and towns in the country (many of which even ban the possession of alcohol in one's own home). Whereas McDonald v. Chicago now prevents such local ordinances from existing for guns. That's why the comparison here is deeply flawed (your goal of comparison does not compute with the realities of the way the two are currently regulated, and where the primary power to regulate locally lies).
While I was personally happy about the McDonald v. Chicago ruling for personal reasons (I was directly affected by the ruling in a positive way as a resident of Chicago, and I admitted to my hypocrisy on this when the ruling was made), politically I consider it to be a hypocritical degradation of state and local rights in favor of a big government nanny state by many of the same people who oppose the reverse occurring when it comes down to other issues that they do not support personally (such as gay marriage, many libertarians excluded from that example).
I personally oppose the vast majority of federal laws in both directions: both from the permissive
and restrictive perspective, for guns AND alcohol. I believe that gun control is
also a state and local issue, not a federal one (the
state militias
should be regulated BY the states). Unfortunately for gun proponents (the majority of which were not even
from Chicago and D.C.), they supported (and in fact
guaranteed) federalizing such gun regulations in the future by virtue of supporting the McDonald and Heller decisions. By castrating state and local governments on this issue, they made it certain that the increasing demand for gun control (as misguided as it may be) will be carried out at the federal level rather than the local level. Their
hypocrisy on this issue is what will lead to their own defeat in this regard.
I am
absolutely willing to admit my hypocrisy on this issue because I was directly affected by the federal intervention in McDonald v. Chicago, which is why I was pleased by the decision on one level. However, I was also dismayed by the decision, and stated so immediately after the ruling occurred, because of it's effects. Sadly, we do not live in a world where people are content to allow others to decide for themselves, no matter how little they are affected by the decisions of others. If constituents in a particular locality wants to ban guns or alcohol outright, that should be their right. They should not be subjected to nanny-state, big government interference on these matters because the money driving such interference is not local money, but instead it is national money procured by some busybody assholes who are not content to allow others to have freedom.
So while I think alcohol
is a good basis for a comparison if one wishes to
oppose rulings such as Heller and McDonald based on the way they undermine state and local governance rights (rather than based on opposition to guns), I think it is a terrible comparison when one is speaking from a federal perspective. Not only are there more current regulations on alcohol when viewed completely (at every level of government), there is far more
freedom to regulate alcohol than there is freedom to regulate firearms at the local level as a result of those rulings.