What if Gun Owners Paid a Tax to Help Defray the High Costs of Gun Violence?

[dlk]

The long list of costs associated with gun violence in American is enormous. Perhaps it's time for gun owners to shoulder some of the responsibility their rights and freedoms cost everyone, gun owners and non-owners alike.

[greymattermom]

1. Cars are also a weapon

and you have to carry specific car insurance to drive one.

[Lurker Deluxe]

3. and ....

If you drive that car into a crowd and kill people, the insurance is not going to pay.

Just as gun insurance would not pay if the gun was used in a criminal manner.

Insurance would cover the victim if they were injured accidentally by the gun, just like your car.

[elehhhhna]

55. That's called health insurance

[MindPilot]

4. Please, cars are not a weapon. Not anymore of a weapon than a chainsaw, baseball bat, or a rock.

But I get your point.

[Hangingon]

18. All those can be weaponized.

ISIS uses trucks to run over people. Car bombs are routine.

[Orrex]

20. A car bomb is different from a car used as a weapon

The car is used either to transport or conceal the explosive; the car is not the weapon.

You could as readily claim that shoes are weapons because asshole with a dynamite vest was wearing shoes when he blew himself up.

[Hangingon]

21. That is splitting hairs.

Yes the explosive is in the car but the car is the container - bomb case. The French ramming attacks using a delivery truck produced heavy damage to innocent people. Cars and trucks are. Much easier toacquire than guns or explosives.

Yes shoes with explosives to breach aircraft pressurization are weapons. So were the underwear. TSA checks toiletries because explosives made be substituted. Sadly, this is ourorld.

[Orrex]

22. "Accurately Comparing Death Rates from Motor Vehicle and Firearm Use"

Here's the takeaway:

Guns are far more dangerous to use than cars- by several orders of magnitude. They’re also far more dangerous to use than hands, feet, clubs, knives, hammers, or blunt objects, all of which are used many trillions of times a year to do all sorts of things, the least frequent of which is to kill people.

Article HERE. Granted, it's from 2013, so I invite gun advocates to post a more recent article re: the relative per-use lethality of vehicles.

Additionally, the whole "cars are dangerous weapons" talking point is straight out of the NRA playbook, so it should be rejected for that reason and also because it's straight-up bullshit.

Yes shoes with explosives to breach aircraft pressurization are weapons. So were the underwear.

Yeah, but that wasn't my point. My point was the shoes (and indeed the underwear) of the asshole with the dynamite vest can't be considered weapons simply because he was wearing them.

I disagree that it's "splitting hairs" to separate a car bomb from a car-as-weapon. If I went on a killing spree by bludgeoning people to death with a bag of handguns, no one would attribute those murders to "deaths by firearm."

Transforming a car into a bomb is perverting the car from its intended use and design. Shooting a person with a gun is using the gun as it was intended and designed.

[Hangingon]

23. Using your criteria, my concealed carry gun isn't a weapon unless I kill someone.

The intended purpose of my gun is defensive. It was designed to shoot - not necessarily shoot people. So just as a dynamite vest is merely a garment, my concealed carry is only a fashion accessory.

[Ms. Toad]

29. Your contention is that it is defensive

Hence it is designed to kill or wound. People, animals, whatever. It is specifically designed to kill.

A car is designed to transport. It can be used to kill (as can a lot of other things) - but that is not its design.

[Hangingon]

33. A gun is designed to shoot.

Its use depends on the operator - just as a car. My guns have never shot anyone, just as my car has never run over anyone. That is why guns and cars are not convicted and sentenced to prison. There're millions of car/gun owners like me.

[Orrex]

36. That is disingenuous

A gun was invented to kill, and--since day one--every evolution in firearm design has been specifically intended to improve its efficiency as a killing machine.

Even if you're splitting hairs and talking about a biathlon competitor's target rifle, the point is the same; that weapon benefits from centuries of design enhancements specifically meant to make firearms more deadly.

Cars, in stark and absolute contrast, undergo constant design enhancements specifically to make them less deadly.

[Hangingon]

38. I disagree. But we veered of on intent.

We see guns used heavily for military uses. That was where the money was. Civilian applications were quick to follow. There the prime uses were hunting and home defense. Target practice was likely an result of arms training. Despite the early design, civilian use is self defense, sporting and for food on th e table. Okay, self defense is close, but concealed carry training stresses that you shoot to stop the threat and not to kill. It is passive - a response to an external threat. When the intent changes - that day when you select the dynamite-vest from your closet with the idea that you will detonate it the coffee shop it becomes active. Of the unknown millions of guns in the USA, only a tiny fraction of them are used for killing innocents. Fact.

When there is a Las Vegas style shooting, you rush to punish millions of uninvolved.

[Orrex]

40. Again, guns serve as self-defense only because they're intended to kill

No one brandishes a gun in self-defense with the intent of having the gun embarrass or insult the assailant. The gun is a killing machine, and it is recognized as a killing machine; otherwise it has no deterrent value of self-defense. This is a fact. That's how the gun was designed; that's how it's built; that's how it is sold, and that's why it is purchased.

We can talk about the fun of target shooting and respecting the intricacy of the firing mechanism and all of that, but it's still a killing machine.

Of the unknown millions of guns in the USA, only a tiny fraction of them are used for killing innocents. Fact.

That's true, but every single one of those guns is still designed, built, sold, and bought because it is a killing machine. That is also fact.

Further, if you're going to rely on the number of guns in the USA versus the number of guns used to kill innocents, then you need to abandon your claims about cars being deliberately used to kill, because the ratio doesn't favor your comparison.

When there is a Las Vegas style shooting, you rush to punish millions of uninvolved.

And in response to every single weekly mass shooting, gun advocates' rush to protect their guns.

[Hangingon]

43. And in response to every mass shooting, thinking people attempt to rehash the root cause.

That would be the person doing the shooting. Remove guns, they will weaponize cars. Remove cars they will resort to fertilizer and diesel. Remove that and we get to shoes and underwear.

Keep trying to ban the guns. It makes gun manufacturing jobs secure.

[Orrex]

46. No, that is yet another NRA talking point.

"They'll find something else." Maybe, maybe not.

Gun advocates--further adhering to the NRA's strategy--love to cry "slippery slope" in any discussion of gun regulation. I've heard it in the media at least a dozen times this week alone. They fear that allowing regulation X will quickly and inescapably result in door-to-door gun confiscations.

But you're happy to embrace the slippery slope fallacy when it suits you. Why?

Guns are used for mass killings because they are designed for killing, and they are very efficient to that end. The other methods that you propose are less efficient, less certain, and often require more work; therefore it is false to assume--as you are assuming--that the removal of guns will result in increased car attacks.

The removal of guns does result in decreased suicides, because the efficient lethality of guns makes impulsive suicide easy, but other methods--less quick and less certain--are not nearly as attractive. By your logic, if we remove the gun from the potential suicide victim, that victim will simply find some other way. Reality doesn't bear this out.

Nor does it support the assumption that we'll see a greater number underwear attacks in the wake of sensible gun control measures.

[Crunchy Frog]

52. Why can't people just use underwear for self defense?

[Orrex]

62. Because it would result in a brief skirmish?

[FSogol]

77. Don't let him box you into a tight corner.

[bettyellen]

51. All NRA propaganda - you ought to be ashamed.

[Ms. Toad]

80. What are guns designed for,

other than to wound or kill living things?

Your initial suggestion was that the are used for defense - their only value as a defensive tool is the threat that they will wound or kill something or someoone, or actually using it to kill or wound something or someone.

Guns used for hunting also are intended to kill living things.

There is no other design for guns. To use a gun to wound or kill is to use it precisely for the purpose for which it was intended.

That is NOT the case with cars. Cars are designed for transportation. To use the car to would or kill requires the user to circumvent the purpose for which it was designed and use it for an entirely different purpose.

Stop trying to create similarities where there are none.

[Orrex]

34. That's not at all true

And your intended purpose is subordinate to the gun's intended purpose.

A gun is intended to launch a projectile in order to damage or destroy a target, or else to carry the threat of damaging or destroying a target. All other post hoc uses are surrogate approximations of this intent.

You say that carry your gun for defense only, and I believe you, but that credible defense depends entirely on the fact that a gun is intended to kill.

A vehicle is intended to convey a person and/or cargo from one place to another.

It can be dismissed because it's a fallacious argument but also because it's a talking point straight out of the NRA playbook. We see their desperate effort to equate cars with weapons literally every single time someone gun-toting fuckhead shoots a bunch of people (i.e., every week).

[Orrex]

19. "Accurately Comparing Death Rates from Motor Vehicle and Firearm Use"

Here's the takeaway:

Guns are far more dangerous to use than cars- by several orders of magnitude. They’re also far more dangerous to use than hands, feet, clubs, knives, hammers, or blunt objects, all of which are used many trillions of times a year to do all sorts of things, the least frequent of which is to kill people.

Article HERE. Granted, it's from 2013, so I invite gun advocates to post a more recent article re: the relative per-use lethality of cars

Additionally, the whole "cars are dangerous weapons" talking point is straight out of the NRA playbook, so it should be rejected for that reason and also because it's straight-up bullshit.

[metalbot]

42. The metrics here are absurd

They are comparing fatalities per bullet fired to fatalities per mile driven.

What other comparisons might we do?

1. Let's compare the fatalities per air bag deployment to fatalities per bullet. Which one wins then?
2. How about fatalities per 100k cars compared to fatalities per 100k firearms?
3. Maybe we could compare the number of drownings per swimming pool in the US to the number of murders per firearm?

All of my metrics are crap as well - completely arbitrary, and selected to prove the point I want.

The "takeaway" of that study is that it's intellectually dishonest.

[Orrex]

45. Yes, gun advocates always say that

Following the NRA's playbook, they love to demonize cars as killing machines after every weekly shooting spree leaves people dead. They are happy to point out rare anomalies like the Nice van attack, and they hold these up as "proof" that cars are more dangerous than guns. Yet somehow we are required to exclude mass shootings from our discussions about the need for gun regulation

Your metrics are crap by your own admission, but for another reason other than what you seem to intend:

1. Let's compare the fatalities per air bag deployment to fatalities per bullet. Which one wins then?
2. How about fatalities per 100k cars compared to fatalities per 100k firearms?
3. Maybe we could compare the number of drownings per swimming pool in the US to the number of murders per firearm?

#2 is wrong because it misses the real comparison to be made here. Deliberately or otherwise, you're conflating accidental death and deliberately-caused death. That's intellectually dishonest, especially since gun advocates insist on excluding suicides when we discuss the 30,000+ annual gun deaths.

Regardless, we must consider the number of deaths that people deliberately cause with guns versus the number of deaths that people deliberately cause with vehicles, and the article shows the numbers quite plainly. There is frankly no comparison.

One can certainly point out the very large number of accidental vehicular deaths, and these absolutely should be addressed, but they are tangential to the subject at hand--namely that guns are used to cause more deliberate deaths in far greater numbers than vehicles.

[metalbot]

71. I don't think we're disputing that guns are the instrument of murder more than cars by a huge margin

I'm taking specific issue with the study YOU cite entitled "Accurately comparing death rates from motor vehicle and firearm use". It's the title YOU used for YOUR post, and is the title of the article you reference.

That article argues:
1. Cars kill at a rate of 1 per 60 million miles traveled
2. Guns kill at a rate of 1 per 475000 rounds fired
3. Therefore guns are orders of magnitude more dangerous

Sorry, that's just sloppy bad math, research, and journalism. There is nothing "Accurate" about this methodology. When I say that the metrics that I suggested are crap, I mean that if you accept that mine are crap, then you surely must accept that the ones in the article are as well.

Nobody is disputing that people are intentionally killed with firearms orders of magnitude more often than with cars, and homicide statistics support this far better than the article you reference.

[Orrex]

73. Well, if your dispute is with the title of the article, that's on the article's author

That's why I included it in quotes, in fact.

Honestly, I find that to be a minor objection to the larger point, but I'm not heavily invested in that particular word, so I'm content to let that drop.

[tymorial]

59. Indeed. I am totally in board with this.

License tax + liability insurance + tax per registered fire arm


We tax the hell out of smokers as a way of dissuading them from use.

[beachbum bob]

2. shoul be insurance on individual guns as well as amunition and the money goes into a

national pool to pay for the healthcare cost of those injured by guns

[Adrahil]

8. how do you insure ammo? NT

[beachbum bob]

26. a dollar a per 50 rounds goes into insurance pool....

[Adrahil]

35. Ah, so not really insurance....

but a fund. I suppose it's a victim's relief fund?

I could support something like that. $1/50rds might be low. AR-15 5.56mm round costs about $.30-$.40 a round, so a box of 50 is $15-$20. Charge 10%.

[hack89]

11. Government run program like flood insurance?

how do you know who has a gun? How do you get criminals to pay? Uninsured drivers are a huge problem where I live - how do you address that with guns?

[inwiththenew]

5. There is a 10% excise tax that goes to the states for wildlife and wildlife habitat conservation

On all new firearms and ammunition sold to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year so there is precedent.

[TexasProgresive]

15. My thought as well

[MindPilot]

6. I think a heavy tax on ammunition would be easier to put into effect.

The 2A mentions only arms, not ammo. One could argue that's implied, but if a single bullet is taxed like a pack of cigarettes, I think we may see gun violence decreased.

[hack89]

10. Defacto bans are unconstitutional.

settled law.

[Orrex]

41. Well, sort of. On paper? Sure. In reality? Well...

Every state in the union has de facto bans on abortion and, unconstitutional or not, they persist.

And when they are occasionally struck down, a nearly identical de facto ban goes into effect, rather like the way gun manufacturers dodge regulation by changing inconsequential bits of Deadly Killing Machine X to turn it into Deadly Killing Machine X.01.

[Kaleva]

44. The $200 stamp tax was a defacto ban

When the law was first enacted back in the 30's, only the wealthy could afford such a tax.

[Adrahil]

12. Historically, ammunition is considered "arms"

Also, there are some downsides to restricting ammo.... the likelihood that accidents increase, as does the likelihood the shooter misses the intended target.

Guns are dangerous, and practice with them is important to maintain competency. If one owns a gun, reasonly frequent practice is important to ensure you know how to actually operate the weapon and don't fire it when you do not mean to. And that you can actually hit what you intend to hit. And that applies to sport shooters too. One thing that scares the crap out of me every fall is seeing how many hunters are terrible shots.

[Kaleva]

47. I practice about 3 times a week using dummy rounds.

One of the reasons I got a revolver instead of a pistol was that I could practice the fundamentals using snaps.

Being on a very limited budget, I shoot live rounds about every 3-4 months and only about a dozen rounds each time. But I handle the revolver with confidence and am accrate with it.

That's an advantage break action, lever action, pump action, bolt action and revolvers have over semiautomatics. You can get more practice in with them using dummy rounds.

[Spartikis]

16. devils advocate

Good idea in theory.

Problem is most criminals get their firearms and ammo through theft or on the black market. So the people actually committing the crime wouldn't be paying the tax, it would be the citizens who follow laws that would.

Also what would we do with the money? Increase police presence? that's not exactly something most people are a fan of.

If two drug dealers shoot each other who does the money go to then?

I think taxing ammo and guns heavily would reduce the number of guns owned but may not decrease crime which is the real problem.

[Hoyt]

7. I like idea of tax, more importantly we need to get rid of law that protects gun profiteers.

I usually consider Ron Insana a right wing, Wall Street shill, but here is a quote from an article he wrote yesterday.

The time for polite debate on gun control is over --

"Gun-makers, as tobacco companies have been, should be held accountable, and legally liable, for the mass casualties that their products are responsible for, with severe penalties, class action lawsuits and other disincentives awaiting them at every turn."

"The NRA, touting Second Amendment rights, not only through TV ads but also through enormous contributions to congressional and presidential campaigns alike, has prevented even the most sensible reforms from passing as laws, as the New York Times has outlined."


https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/05/the-time-for-polite-debate-on-gun-control-is-over.html

[hack89]

9. We do pay a tax. Just redirect it to healthcare. nt

[sharedvalues]

13. YES. E.g. metal detectors at schools

Plus medical care
Fund for lost business at places like Mandalay Bay
Compensating Sandy Hook parents for suffering

We have a gas tax to fund roads. Cigarette tax. Liquor tax.
Time for a gun tax.

[Spartikis]

17. states

I believe several states already have taxes on ammo, not sure how much but have not heard of it doing much.

I mean cigarettes are insanely expensive and literally give you cancer but people still line up at the gas station to buy them. High taxes wont stop gun owners, they will just buy one 10 guns instead of 20 or shoot every other month instead of every month. Again none of that stops crime...

[Kingofalldems]

69. Funny I have never seen a line for cigarettes. Where is this?

[TrishaJ]

14. Tax the hell out of ammunition,

Is a good start

[MichMan]

24. Making sure only the rich have guns.... nm

[Sunlei]

28. first box of ammo, no tax so the "poor" can defend themselves!

[Man_Bear_Pig]

25. Most states do not have gun registration.

Do you own guns?

Gun Owner: Nope

[Sunlei]

27. ammo should have a federal tax of $1 a round to pay for NON-profit healthcare system for Americans.

one standard box of ammo no tax.

[Marengo]

56. What is a "standard" box of ammo? How would the seller know the "standard" box has already...

Been purchased?

[Sunlei]

75. 100 rounds tax free. because you deduct your tax paid on your yearly IRS report.

[Alea]

30. Tax the hell out of them so poor people can't own guns

not even going to waste time with the sarcasm emoticon

[Crunchy Frog]

49. Tax the hell out of them so the poor/uninsured or underinsured

can get all the care they need without facing economic ruin when they get shot through no fault of of their own.

I think that's a bigger concern than being able to afford firearms.

[jmg257]

31. Maybe those actually committing the violence,

And their estates, should take it on?

Though most purchases are taxed already too.

[Crunchy Frog]

50. There should be liability if YOUR GUN is used to kill or injure

or commit a crime.

That might at least discourage people from leaving them lying around, or giving them to that unbalanced relative, or selling to a total stranger.

[haele]

32. It's probably about 5 - 6% of the population at most.

Legal owners that buy at legal venues - the ones you could tax or charge a fee to, that is. Not a lot you can get, still puts the majority of the cost burden on the general public.
Remember, only 3% of the population own something like 80% of the guns in the U.S.

Haele

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

53. actually over 80 million Americans own guns

So around 30%

[Orrex]

37. Step 1: Recognize the NRA as a terrorist organization

Step 2: Allow a 30-day grace period in which NRA members can formally disavow that terrorist organization; beginning on day 31, they are explicitly guilty of abetting terrorism, and all of their firearms shall be confiscated and destroyed.

Step 3: Redefine "arms" as "any and all weapons extant or designed as of the time of the ratification of the 2nd amendment." Anything designed or built after that date shall not be considered "arms" under the 2nd amendment and are therefore subject to tight restrictions.

Step 4: Laugh at the gun advocates who insist that their precious, precious guns are already subject to tight restrictions.

Step 5: Laugh at the gun advocates who then squawk that "the founding fathers didn't predict the internet, either," and remind them that what applies to one amendment absolutely need not apply to any others.

[Baconator]

60. Posts like this are why you'll a tough time getting restrictions on bump stocks through...

Strong 2nd amendment types point to stuff like this when they say "Give an inch and take a mile"

Emotional, hyperbolic and riddled with legal fallacies...

[Orrex]

63. Well, fuck them.

The NRA has been directly dictating policy for decades, and they own the GOP.

I am also unimpressed by NRA enablers who presume to scold me for emotionalism or hyperbole.

[Baconator]

64. I suppose it's a question of priorities...

Do you want to win or do you want to vent?

Obviously, none of the patently illegal suggestions you made could happen but some expanded gun control measures could get through if stuff like your post wasn't gumming up the works.

[Orrex]

68. Your legal speculations are unpersuasive, and the NRA thanks you for your support

I'm flattered that you think me so important, but it seems unlikely that my post is doing anything to slow down meaningful gun regulation, especially when the NRA is dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into its campaign to elect subservient toadies, suppress real data, and broadcast bullshit that gun advocates are then happy to parrot for free.

[Jake Stern]

74. Are you REALLY sure you want to open that door?

"Step 5: Laugh at the gun advocates who then squawk that "the founding fathers didn't predict the internet, either," and remind them that what applies to one amendment absolutely need not apply to any others."

You don't think that some fascist federal judge or those assholes on the 5th Circuit would hesitate to use that precedent to uphold a Trump supported law censoring the internet or TV or radio?

[LexVegas]

39. Marshmallows are a weapon.

We gonna tax those extra too?!

[LanternWaste]

48. This is one of the few instances when a conservative demographic wants everyone else to pay for thei

This is one of the few instances when a conservative demographic wants everyone else to pay for their collective mess, and rationalizes reasons why insurance, valid in all other walks of life, is unworkable.

[Baconator]

61. Are you suggesting that insurance should cover illegal acts?

[Not Ruth]

65. That would be a really interesting approach

Imagine if you had a 20% tax on all revenue towards illegal acts that you paid for your entire life. After a certain amount of time, you could get it back, say 20 years, and you would start over, IF you never did anything illegal. Of course, if you did something illegal, it goes into a fund to help victims, and you forfeit your contributions and start contributing to the fund from scratch.

[Vinca]

54. Dead is dead and taxing guns won't bring people back to life.

[samir.g]

58. Confiscate all assets of the NRA and gun manufacturers

Nationalize the industry, then stop selling to civilians.

I know, we can't do this until we repeal the 2nd.

[Baconator]

66. ... and the 5th.

[ileus]

72. Also confiscate all assets of gun owners...

[Not Ruth]

78. What political system are you thinking of where this might happen?

[Initech]

67. Yeah because if there's one thing gun owners love, it is paying taxes!

[alarimer]

70. Yes, and liability insurance

A substantial tax on all guns and ammunition to put into a fund that covers the care for victims, who face crippling lifetime injuries and medical bills.

Odd how anyone can have hundreds of guns in this country, yet we cannot manage universal health care.

[guillaumeb]

76. Or the weapons manufacturers themselves.

At this point, all of the costs of gun violence are externalized onto society at large. The weapons manufacturers make the profits and taxpayers pay for the carnage.

[Ilsa]

79. Insurance. NT