According to Google News, voters did pass the gun ban law I mentioned last week. Unfortunately, it’s looking doubtful that it will come to fuition because:
- A similar law in 1982 was overturned as pre-empted by State law.
- The NRA and gun toting second amendment nuts are out in force.
That’s a shame. As I said before, I really grok the reasoning people have for owning guns and really grok the dangerous uses they have. I generally don’t like repressive laws but in this case the voters (the people) have decided they don’t want guns – and if the people wanted guns again then they could get another bill put before the legislature.
I doubt very much that they’ll see sense. There are too many people saying it’s a bad thing for this ban to last very long. I wouldn’t pass legislation against owning handguns anyway, I’d simply go for the aggressive taxation approach. Just like for tobacco, if we made it so prohibitively expensive for anyone to smoke or own guns then the problems would soon improve.
[ED: I don't mean that we currently have high tobacco taxes. I'm talking super taxation. ]
Jon.
Taxation is the answer. The massive tax slapped onto tobacco in the UK and its success should be proof enough for anyone that nobody buys heavily taxed products.
Yeah that’s right.
Just look how increasing taxes have reduced heavy drinking and car use in this country.
Wel taxation is a possiblility. It will however create a bigger illegal circuit for smuggling weapons. Just think of the huge amount of people that go buy their sigarettes in France? And look at the famous alcohol boats travelling between Finland and Estonia, Germany or Sweden. It might hamper the pourer or less flexible people (or just the ones that don’t happen to live close to the border) but could also just push them into looking into the black market (which will be pretty big in the US seen the amount of guns in circulation because until now it always has been really easy to get one). .A more reasonable approach might be like in Belgium. Make it more expensive to get (but not too much), but also increase the amount of paperwork. So that the process is tedious enough to keep the ones that just want a gun for the coolness factor from getting one, without making it so hard that they get tempted to purchase one on the black market. In Belgium you first need to get a license. You can only get it after you have been screened by the police and have followed a training course in some firearm club and taken a succesful exam. Of course this all costs money and (lots of) time Also you are not allowed to take the gun home for the first few years (you need to leave it in the club) before you are allowed to take it home. On top of that you are not allowed to have both the handgun and ammo at the same place expect at home or on a gun range. (It might not be completely accurate as I never tried to get a gun myself as I really see no need to have one)
Ok. So it’s not perfect, but I don’t think taxes on alcohol are sufficiently high to put people off drinking. On the other hand, I was discussing just today how high petrol prices are making people take action at the moment – and I don’t think the taxes on petrol are high enough to really put people off.
No, I’m talking super taxation. Like a level of tax many times the cost of the item and perhaps rated according to the average cost of GSW treatment at an average hospital. Should only mean the average gun cost 10 times as much.