Simplicity. Why gun control is a bamboozle.

[Pavulon]

Lets start with some very basic FACTS to begin with.

50% percent of gun death in the US is Suicide.
Violent crime is dropping, including shootings.
Cities with strict gun control have more violent crime.
Twenty percent of U.S. homicides occur in four cities with just 6% of the population—New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Washington, D.C

WHY is gun control a bamboozle?

Gun control is used in PLACE of root cause analysis and FIXING the problems that cause gun deaths.
Lack of mental health care.
Drug Laws that create a black market economy. Unregulated transactions lead to violence. See any major city with a gang problem.
Poverty (and race) are DIRECTLY linked to gun violence. If you are black or latino and live in a city you are FAR more likely to be killed or jailed.
If you live in Telluride CO, Greenwich, or Martha Vineyard this problem does not impact you directly.
Guns are highly regulated already. There are thousands of laws on the books regulating sales, possession, and use of firearms.

Solution (something the Control people never have)

Legalize ALL drugs and transact sales in a regulated manner. People are not going to stop using drugs. Use money from sales to treat the medical conditions. Yes it sucks to sell people addictive and lethal chemicals but it is destroying communities now. Let the police concentrate on other criminal activity.

Make comprehensive mental health care available to all and make it private. Depression and mood disorders are lethal as cancer and the stigma attached kills people.

Take steps to destroy the "drug" culture. Drug culture is not "balck" culture. It does not make you a racist to attack the drug culture and call it out as a negative force in minority communities promoting ignorance, irresponsibility, and death.

The bamboozle is these things take effort and money. They are hard to do, even though they are morally and politically correct. So the people in power will continue to ignore these things and address guns as some sort of problem. There lies a great shame on our country.

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. Your argument implies that you favor no control whatsoever on gun ownership

[Pavulon]

2. I mentioned the THOUSANDS of laws on the books.

Many of which are fine. INSTANT background checks are fine. Regulation on criminal ownership fine. Stupid shit with no real purpose can go.

The use of gun control to pretend crime control is being passed, not so much.

[OrangeGrapes]

3. How?

I don't see how it does. Please, explain how you figure this.

[safeinOhio]

4. How about the cigarette model?

All kinds of regulations didn't stop teens or others from smoking. Raise the price through taxes and the smoking rates dropped like a rock. Even with roll your own and bootlegs smokes the smoking rate has dropped fast than gun violence.

Not really recommending this, just like you, trying out logic and reality.

[X_Digger]

5. Is your goal to decrease legal gun ownership and usage? n/t

[oneshooter]

7. That way registration is easier! n/t

[safeinOhio]

8. Reduce gun violence and

criminal possession of guns. Just like reducing smoking by teens and those with COPD. You don't feel higher taxes on smokes contributed to reduced smoking? Just using cigarette tax as a model in the same manner the poster used the libertarian economic theory that has had both successes and failures. After all we are just looking at what works.

[X_Digger]

9. But is it your goal to reduce legal possession and use as a means to reduce illegal use?

"You don't feel higher taxes on smokes contributed to reduced smoking? " -- did it impair teen smoking only? No.

Similarly, taxes on firearms will mainly affect those who purchase them legally, and only incidentally for those who use them illegally.

Funny though, it's good to see your true feelings poking through when you analogize.

[Pavulon]

10. you think those guys paid msrp?

people buy cigs. Criminals steal guns. Making them more expansive for me does not make it any more expensive for some prick to steal.

Violence is an elective behavior (in most cases), not an addictive chemical.

[Euromutt]

28. It doesn't work with crime guns; see Daniel Polsby

Specifically, Polsby's article "Firearm Costs, Firearm Benefits and the Limits of Knowledge" published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 86, no. 1, 1995 (http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/PolsbyFirearmCosts.htm).

Polsby writes:

With respect to the firearms side of this problem, it cannot be emphasized too strongly that one is dealing with a demand-led rather than a supply-led phenomenon--young men demanding guns as a means of self defense and self-realization. These young men are not merely using guns because large numbers of them are floating around, as mayors and police chiefs insinuate when they tell reporters that "there are too many guns out there." Recognizing this problem as a demand-side situation predicts the limited usefulness (if not futility) of public policies that seek to "dry up" the supply of guns. The most ludicrous policies of this type are "turn-in-your-gun days" or rules that prohibit police departments from selling surplus weapons. But many kinds of regulatory interventions that place burdens on legal markets embrace the same faulty premise.
<...>
Of course gun runners will seek the least cost and most convenient source of supply, whatever it may be, legal markets, if available, but if they cannot deliver what is demanded, the turn to illegal markets, of smuggled guns or guns manufactured in cottage industry, is a simple operation. The acquisition behavior of illicit retail customers should be discouraged modestly at best by piling costs on gun runners. These customers are seeking to invest in capital plant for which there exists no ready substitutes. Licit buyers, on the other hand, usually are shopping for items of personal consumption, for which a number of obvious substitutes (e.g., archery; B-B guns; and for that matter, going to the movies) evidently exist. The implication of this situation, though usually ignored, is very important: the price sensitivity of firearms buyers will diminish as their motive for owning a firearm becomes more sinister. The price sensitivity of buyers will increase as their motive for owning a firearm becomes more innocuous.
<...>
The expectation that the sorts of market interventions described by Cook et al. would have a beneficial effect on the homicide rate embeds the assumption of monotonicity, that is, that there are constant returns (in the form of lowered homicide rates) to reductions in the number of firearms in private hands. Those who in any degree credit the possibility of Heinlein or Kleck effects operating, however, and who understand the implication of the distinction between "firearm as capital" and "firearm as toy," will regard this assumption as rather naive. Such students of the problem will consider the question of how firearms are distributed in society as much more important than how many there are. They will also reject as inherently counter-productive efforts to adopt policies that aim at reducing the number of arms in the hands of criminals by imposing regulatory costs in licit markets.

Emphases in bold mine.

[SteveM]

14. Taxes too high are prohibitions by another name...

Cigarette smuggling is already increasing (both from over the border, and from reservations), and there is little indication that this will "drop like a rock."

Besides, when you have an INDIVIDUAL RIGHT PROTECTED BY THE CONSTITUTION, raising taxes on firearms will be seen as the subterfuge that it is -- like poll taxes to thwart blacks from voting in Texas. Is that the reason you are not recommending this approach?

[safeinOhio]

15. Simple cost/ benefit.

I'm willing to pay a little more to reduce the need for me to shoot someone.

Article one section 8 of the Constitution.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

[X_Digger]

16. And yet..

Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue -- a special tax on newsprint and ink was ruled unconstitutional infringement of the first amendment.

[safeinOhio]

17. That was a state court case

read Article 1 section 8 again. A federal tax must be uniform across the states.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Teen-smoking-stats-at-record-low/tabid/368/articleID/166056/Default.aspx?ArticleID=16605

The price of a pack of cigarettes in New Zeland has risen to $12/pack and teenage smoking has gone from 29% down to 11% in ten years. You don't want to see violent gun crime to go down like that? While you have argued that bans don't work, I think there is proof that taxes do. Econ 101, as cost go up, demand goes down. The price of newspapers has risen a bunch over the last decade and paper sales have gone down too.

[X_Digger]

18. BZZT! SCOTUS case

Justices for the Court

Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Warren E. Burger, Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O'Connor (writing for the Court), Lewis F. Powell, Jr., John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White


http://law.jrank.org/pages/12734/Minneapolis-Star-v-Minnesota-Commissioner-Revenue.html#ixzz0ythKIJzN

The price of a pack of cigarettes in New Zeland has risen to $12/pack and teenage smoking has gone from 29% down to 11% in ten years. You don't want to see violent gun crime to go down like that? While you have argued that bans don't work, I think there is proof that taxes do. Econ 101, as cost go up, demand goes down. The price of newspapers has risen a bunch over the last decade and paper sales have gone down too.

I'm trying not to upchuck my dinner. That you'd be willing, nay eager, to tax a constitutionally protected right in an attempt to curtail it for everyone, just on the hope that it also curtails illegal use of those same tools.. just sickens me.

How very classist / elitist of you. Poor people? Fuck 'em, they shouldn't be poor. If you don't have enough money to meet the sin tax for the right of self-defense, well then, you shouldn't be poor, now should you!?!?

Disgusting.

[friendly_iconoclast]

22. It's Royalist gun control- "Only the good people should have legal guns"

And I would note that your interlocutor has carefully avoided pointing out two other aspects of his proposed tax:

1. It would be regressive.

The better-off could afford what they want, while those people would be limited in what they could afford for self-defense.

And since there is no demonstrable link on the number of firearms someone owns and their likelihood in doing something criminal

(if you are law-abiding while owning one gun, chances are you'd still be law abiding if you owned several dozen- as many collectors

do), this is purely a class-based attempt to disarm the working poor no matter the fine words it comes wrapped in.

and

2. It would be racist, as unfortunately in this country, skin color is a rough guide to income levels.

[Pavulon]

19. NO cigs are free. If you STEAL them. See smoking and splattering someones brains

are a different thing. A person willing to kill you is willing to steal a gun to facilitate that act.

Again you people refuse to address root cause. How bout you get back to me when your war on drug works (prohibition).

Your question about "wanting" to have crime to go down is insulting.

[Hoopla Phil]

20. SCOTUS Minneapolis Star v. Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue

http://aclu.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=444

One bit from the Courts decision: "A power to tax differentially, as opposed to a power to tax generally, gives a government a powerful weapon against the taxpayer selected. When the State imposes a generally applicable tax, there is little cause for concern. We need not fear that a government will destroy a selected group of taxpayers by burdensome taxation if it must impose the same burden on the rest of its constituency. When the State singles out the press, though, the political constraints that prevent a legislature from passing crippling taxes of general applicability are weakened, and the threat of burdensome taxes becomes acute. That threat can operate as effectively as a censor to check critical comment by the press, undercutting the basic assumption of our political system that the press will often serve as an important restraint on government..."

[oneshooter]

21. And you can raise the registration fee so high

that only you and your "friends" can afford it. More money for the State.

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[PavePusher]

23. Are we going to pay uniform "Duties, Imposts and Excises" on the rest of our Civil Rights?

Because that's the only way for them to be uniform...

[safeinOhio]

24. Kind of sound like

republicans saying a 3% rate increase on the rich will kill them and the country. I'd guess state sales tax on guns and ammo are just as unconstitutional as any Federal tax would be? Where are all of the arguments on how racist and unfair sales taxes on 2nd rights to buy guns? Me thinks you guys are stretching your outrage a wee too much.
Note I didn't say I was supporting this tax, only that it would be effective. Especially if the money raised was used for enforcement of the laws we already have on the books, which you all regularly bitch about, but never seem to come up with the money to do it with. I would think it more racist and unfair to the poor to allow corporation, like insurance companies, to get jury awards over turned and put caps on settlements rather than to let juries decide as a right guaranteed by the 7th. But, some rights just are more important than others.

[X_Digger]

25. MJ would be proud..

.. you can moonwalk with the best of them.

Walk it back, walk it back.. *throw a red herring in*..

[friendly_iconoclast]

26. There's already a 11% Fed. tax on guns + ammo. And sales taxes, to boot.

"Note I didn't say I was supporting this tax, only that it would be effective."

Effective at what, exactly? Fighting crime? You've yet to demonstrate how.

"Especially if the money raised was used for enforcement of the laws we already have on the books, which you all regularly bitch about, but never seem to come up with the money to do it with."

The funds from your proposed tax would probably be dumped into the general revenue stream.


"I would think it more racist and unfair to the poor to allow corporation, like insurance companies, to get jury awards over turned and put caps on settlements rather than to let juries decide as a right guaranteed by the 7th. But, some rights just are more important than others."

Get back to us when you've got some rational explanation of WTF this has to do with regressive taxes upon the practice of a civil right....

You're gonna pull a muscle if you keep overreaching like this

[safeinOhio]

27. If being a regressive tax is a problem,

it could be made into a progressive tax with higher taxes on those weapons and ammo that are most used in criminal violence. "would probably be dumped" is a pretty lame argument. The example of reduce smoking in NZ is a great demonstration of how effective a tax would be, higher cost doesn't reduce demand? Where is the outrage on civil liberties and it's cost to the poor on the 7th? Or is the 2nd the only Amendment that can bring out your rage?

[friendly_iconoclast]

31. Yet *another* Royalist gun control proposal, with an attempt at diversion thrown in

If being a regressive tax is a problem.... it could be made into a progressive tax with higher taxes on those weapons and ammo that are most used in criminal violence.

With tax assessment to be done by the Department of Precrime?

So these weapons would be 'safer' somehow, if possession could be confined to those financially better off? So when a new group

of 'dangerous' guns appears in crime statistics- well, let's just raise the taxes on them, in order to 'fight crime'.


Why don't you just come out and say:

"The more money people have, the less likely it is they'll do something criminal with a gun. If we make legal gun ownership

more expensive, the crime rate will go down."

Where is the outrage on civil liberties and it's cost to the poor on the 7th? Or is the 2nd the only Amendment that can bring out your rage?

The Seventh Amendment is more properly discussed in the Civil Liberties or Justice forums, per DU rules.

If you are somehow exempt from those rules, please fill us in on the details. Otherwise, I call 'red herring'.

[Euromutt]

29. I think you need to re-read the 7th Amendment

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Seems to me that, as long as the central question of whether the plaintiff was wronged by the defendant (the "fact" at hand) is decided by a jury, the plaintiff and defendant's rights under the 7th Amendment aren't being infringed upon. The 7th doesn't say that the jury shall get to determine damages awarded. And of course, in the case of a settlement out of court, the jury isn't involved at all.

Personally, I think a better approach to tort reform would be adopting a "loser pays" model rather than capping damages, but let's not pretend the 7th covers something it doesn't.

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SteveM]

33. Respectfully, this is not good enough...

Of course Congress has the power to lay and collect taxes, etc., but not in a discriminatory manner, and not by subterfuge in service of an ill-thought-out social policy. During the Jim Crow era, taxes and high license fees were attempted in the South in an effort to prohibit black gun ownership; trouble is, poor whites were affected by the policy as well; in any case, the efforts were usually ineffective.

"I'm willing to pay a little more to reduce the need for me to shoot someone."

Do you really expect this will "reduce the need for me (you) to shoot someone?" I've never known much cost/benefit analysis in the realm of social policy which was "simple."

[TheWraith]

32. You can't stop underage consumption, no.

But you can make it more difficult. Any kid who feels like being honest will tell you that it's easier to get pot than it is cigarettes or booze. That's because selling pot is already illegal, so there's no disincentive for people to sell it to minors. Whereas with cigarettes and alcohol legal dealers have a STRONG disincentive to provide to underage sellers. It still happens, but they're risking their entire business when it does.

[cleanhippie]

6. Stop it! Stop it right now!

Using facts, hard data and logical thought is NOT allowed.

[RSillsbee]

11. Hi.

I actually registered here specifically to participate in this discussion (long time lurker though).

This is actually more a response to post two than to post one

At first glance it seems to me that some gun control laws are desirable but in reality anything you can illegally do with a gun is already , well, illegal.

If I rob a bank it’s not any more a robbery if I have a gun, you’re no less dead if I beat you over the head w/ a baseball bat or poison you than if I shoot you.

I just don’t see the point of a law that doesn’t do anything but make it harder for law abiding people to obey the law.

Am I missing something?

[spin]

12. Welcome to DU. Politicians often pander to their voting base ...

and when the voters want to see some action on crime and violence, they take the easy road and pass new gun legislation. These "feel good" laws rarely accomplish any purpose except to make the politician look like he/she is trying.

People eventually wake up to the fact that the real solution to reducing violent crime is expensive and far from simple. It involves an investment in better policing and a reform of a "revolving door" justice system.

[SteveM]

13. Goodness! Please re-read the OP. nt