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In 1934 the Fed govt enacted the National Firearms Act, putting a huge tax (equivalent to two months' average wages at a time when huge numbers had no job at all) on any sale or transfer of various shotguns, silencers etc.
It was taken to a Federal District Court, which took about 20 minutes to rule it was an unconstitutional attempt to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms. The "tax" was obviously intended to prevent people from getting guns, not just to raise revenue. Just like the "tax" you are proposing here.
It only survive later when it went to the Supreme Court... because nobody from the defense even showed up to argue their case. (The defendant was found two weeks later in a stream bed with four pistol bullets in his chest.) His lawyer, unable to find his client before the trial date, didn't want to go to the huge effort of preparing a Supreme Court case when he likely to not get paid or even reimbursed for office and filing expenses.
So one side of the courtroom was empty as the govt prosecution read several lies into the record about the meaning of the 2nd amendment. Nobody was there to refute the falsehoods, which the Justices rubber-stamped into an "opinion". The Fed govt has been very careful to never revisit the case again, knowing it would likely be overturned as quickly as the original District Court's opinion was reached.
In Indiana, VP Pence made sure to pass legislation to allow guns to be concealed in vehicles on school campuses. I think he got paid, like, 3 million $$$ from NRA for that move.
Vote Republicans the hell out of every office in the land.
They support batterers and murderers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zzzSnorlax
So why is this such an impossible topic to talk about or come to a consensus on, let me give my POV:
These events are driven by several factors, so lets use some math:
Say out of every 100,000 people one person will be homicidally insane. As the population goes up the quantity of these people will also go up. Since this is most likely usually linked to some genetic component, there is not really much we can do about this factor. More people, more crazies: fact.
If say 50% of that 100,000 sample have access or own firearms, then you will see a proportion of these shootings that correspond with that. A gun as a tool, undeniably makes it easier to kill people (If you deny this you are operating outside reality) all the other examples people throw up have caveats, bombs are not as easy for the unskilled to use they have a higher skill floor to be utilized. Vehicles, while having roughly the same skill floor to utilize as weapons of murder, and while also pretty effective at it, have specific terrain and location requirements to be used in that manner thus are less flexible. IE: You wouldn't see this kid driving a truck down the hallways of his school etc. Pretty much any alternative to a gun has caveats that make it less effective, or less usable in general.
So that all said it would seem on the surface the logical answer would be to reduce the quantity and ease of access to firearms but NOT SO FAST, because there is another factor to consider which is the existing saturation of firearms. This is the key difference between say, gun control in America vs say, Japan.
Because they are so concentrated, there is not really a way to meaningfully reduce the quantity in any sort of short term time frame(which is what people are looking for) that does not involve draconian use of force that I do not believe would be acceptable to a majority of people. Not only that, in order to have any meaningful impact the laws would have to be global, because localized laws just send people on a couple hour drive to get the same thing (IE localized gun laws are pretty much completely useless, the only effective way would be to achieve a drastic reduction in saturation over an extremely wide geographic area). This boils down to crazy person decides to shoot up school: No gun sales in his county/city state? No problem just drive to the next county/city/state... but if there are no sales, and also barely any guns at all in his entire country? Well, he could leave the country and try to smuggle firearms back in but... that is far more likely to fail, far more expensive, and far more difficult for your run of the mill crazy to execute. Ditto for building his own guns and ammo from scratch, far far less crazies have the skill set to achieve that.
This leads me to my conclusion: Gun control, specifically gun control relative to the US, even more specifically gun control that would have an actual impact on these events, is at this point an all or nothing proposition with the 2 options being:
A) Complete ban on all firearms and ammunition, aggressive buyback window coupled with forceful confiscation of said guns and ammo after the window is up. I do not think we are ready for the consequences of the Pandora's box this particular action would open.
or
B) Status quo, everyone has pretty much equal access so that they have the capacity to be on even footing should that 1 in 100,000 crazy person mentioned earlier end up with them in their cross hairs.
You can do things like try to put laws in place stopping mentally ill from buying guns and ammo, but without reducing the concentration of guns it is pretty much irrelevant.
So back to the original question of why consensus cannot be reached, why a compromise will not be had: These 2 choices A & B are philosophically irreconcilable with each other. Any compromise between the 2 ends of these choices will simply be ineffective, so compromise cannot be made.
while I do agree with a lot of what you said, I don't agree with the conclusion.
we don't end with status quo because there are things that we can do that will cut down on this.
mentally ill people need treatment. we don't do that.
on a personal note, I had a very dear close relative that killed himself. He was severely depressed and suicidal. but the law prevented his family from having him committed until his depression could be dealt with. The LAW. the law in his case protected his right to not be treated if he didn't want treatment. the law is crazy. my loved one is dead.
we can absolutely change the law so that it allows family members and doctors to decide how to treat the mentally ill. period. the law is currently part of the problem.
we can also insure places like schools have the ability to protect students. we have the ability to put weapons in the hands of qualified and trained individuals that can protect students in schools.
We have this ability and the cost would be minimal. but its better to have the issue than it is to have the fix.
As long as you can get criminals to obey the law....
The issue is letting people freely own and carry a weapon if they want to (as the 2nd amendment commands).
That is the one way to actually get criminals (many of them) to obey the law: If they are aware there is probably someone nearby who will bow them away if they don't.
Thats right. So you'd be exempt from paying the tax if you can prove that you belong to a legally authorized militia.
Read the 2A part about militia.
Because the phrase "a well regulated militia" means they meant only for the military to have guns?
Which is why they put something as obvious as the military's right to own firearms 2nd only to the freedom of speech?
Despite the fact that there are no historical accounts of the Federal government enforcing this interpretation of the 2nd by confiscating guns from the general public?
Despite the fact that there is historical documentation of private citizens owning artillery and even battleships?
Because the Founders "couldn't envision semi automatic weapons" despite the fact that prototype semi automatic weapons predate the signing of the Constitution by about 90 years?
Because they had seen weapons evolve dramatically before and during their lifetimes, becoming more accurate , reliable and faster to reload and were too stupid to deduce that they would continue to evolve?
Ask the family of the woman in New York who was murdered by her boyfriend a few years ago. It was going to take her 30 days to get a gun for protection, but she did not live that long.
Ok, I think we're drilling down to it now. I agree, that's not ideal. However, I think it's a balance of societal goods. For me, looking at the issue, it's balancing situations like with this woman, where she needed to acquire a gun fast to protect herself, and can't get it in time, vs. the massive reduction in homicides that would occur as a result of enacting these laws. On balance, which serves the greater good? To me, it seems that if we applied Japan's gun control laws, we would all be safer as a result. Would there still be cases like with this woman? Yes there would, but how many would there be? Would it be a statistically significant amount of people? Going with the utilitarian approach to this, it seems to me that all the lives saved by the reduction in gun violence nationwide would be worth it.
Ultimately, I think people would have to adjust. Rural people would know that it'll take longer to get guns, but they'll go through the process to obtain them all the same.
Better to have the tax than allowing nut jobs (almost all couldn't afford the tax anyway) from running around shooting everyone they see on a whim.
Brilliant!!!
Everybody knows criminals and nut jobs are incapable of paying a tax or obtaining a firearm another way!!!
Why didn't you think of that years ago??????
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