While I am proud to be at the front of the parade to regulate firearms in hopes of ending the plague of shootings in this country, I’m just as happy to be chief critic of a bone-headed effort to make gun owners and manufacturers liable for shooting deaths.
Democratic state Senate President John Morse unleashed a bill this week that he calls “common sense.” It would try and do an end-run around existing federal laws and allow shooting victims to sue the owners and makers of guns in some instances.
The notion is so convoluted and so unreasonable that it only serves to inflame an already trigger-happy shooting-rights constituency.
It’s akin to making ski makers liable for ski injuries or golf-ball makers liable for those injured by a wayward ball. Sadly, it would only add to the growing “not my fault” mentality that really hurts the nation. Liability suits need to be reserved for neglectful or irresponsible businesses making flawed products.
Most guns made in the United States are far from defective. In fact, they effectively end the lives of about 32,000 Americans each year. Guns and ammunition are so impeccably designed that they also injure about 74,000 Americans each year, a few hundred each day. Those who injure themselves unintentionally with a gun almost always get hurt because of their own carelessness or stupidity, which is a bad mix with anything that fires a projectile.
No, making those who sell or use firearms liable for destruction caused by guns does nothing but make everyone mad, and everyone’s mad enough about all of this.
I get it that there are so many guns in the United States, about 200 million of them owned by non-military citizens, that we cannot simply “gun control” them into making the country safer. Not only are they prolific, the gun-nuts are so scary and so determined that truly effective gun-control measures, like forced buy-backs, would just end up with more people getting shot by folks who have way more bullets in their closet than well-firing synapses in their heads.
Instead, we’ve got to look at guns just like we do any other public health hazard or nuisance. Tax ‘em.
The menace of gun violence is pretty much akin to the tobacco problem in the United States, and it’s the way to solve it. It’s a public burden in much the same way as are cigarettes. The cost to our society is immense. American police and private citizens fork out hundreds of billions of dollars a year trying to get guns away from criminals, providing health care to those injured by guns and trying to keep from being injured or killed by a gun.
Tax ‘em. Start with ammunition. Ten cents a round, whether it’s a .22 or a shotgun shell. Cigarettes drive up the cost of health care in this country, so do guns and bullets. That ammo tax would raise about $1.2 billion dollars a year. Half should go to the feds, and half should go to the states. The money would have to be spent on providing metal detectors and people to run them at public schools, shopping malls and movie theaters. In fact, any place that by design accommodates more than 100 people at a time would have to install a metal detector and secure gun check at the door.
Next, a flat $10 tax on all gun sales, used and new. Same deal, half goes to the feds, half to the states. That’s another $200 million Americans can spend on defending themselves from being on the wrong side of a gun barrel.
Just like we now legally have smoke-free zones, private and public businesses must be allowed to create gun-free zones. The penalty for violating gun-free places would be harsh and swift. Big fines and big community service projects that would include picking up garbage, shoveling snow off sidewalks or other tasks that could save taxpayers money so they could spend more on defending the public from gunfire.
Money raised from taxing guns and ammunition would have to be used on programs that reduce gun violence, either by hiring armed guards, educating the public on how to protect themselves from those with guns, or expanding mental health services to deal with the increasing number of psychologically ill people who want guns.
This is real common-sense legislation. Gun nuts have made it clear that we’ve got to live with firearms no matter what. But those of us who don’t relish getting shot to death or having to create arsenals to defend ourselves from others with guns have rights, too. And they’re expensive.
Reach editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com
so, I know this politician and she always says to me that the best advice she gets always comes right after the dollar signs…..would you all please follow the money?????
Seriously, you want metal detectors in all public buildings, movie theaters and the like? Interesting…will people have to arrive two hours early to enter a mall, theater, stadium in order to be screened? What happens when metal is detected…what happens next? Who gets to deal with the person possible concealing a weapon? I guess we need to add officers to these venues and that alone requires more than one officer and special training.
Then, how much more are you willing to pay for this needless “protection”? Movie tickets at $15.00, mall “entrance fees” at say $5.00…sort of a “cover charge”?
You cant prevent stupidity. Tax bullets at $100.00 each and some idiot will still find a way to injure him/herself. It’s not the cost of ammo, it’s the way firearms are misused.
Why is it that the only way a liberal can solve a problem is with increased taxes or a new law?
Real common-sense legislation is to regulate guns like automobiles. Require that liability insurance be carried for gun owners and make short term tags available for all purchases.
Instead of the hated gov’t being the main actor in this public policy change, let the insurance industry calculate the real risks of gun ownership. Like auto insurance, we would then have discounts for multi-gun households, gun safes, trigger locks, childless households, years of experience, safety classes, hunting rifles, and other factors. On the otherside of their equation, first time male owners of assault rifles under of the age of 30 should pay more for the risk they present as they already do for auto insurance.
Stolen guns and ill transfered guns should be covered by the previous owner’s insurance for some period of transition. An uninsured gun owner fund will probably still need to be created, but victims and their families are entitled to better than relying on bake sales to cover their damages.
The goal here is not to take guns away but have the gun owners step up and assume the liability for the risk that their guns present to our society.
If i’m right, I believe the ammunition tax was attempted and found to be UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Perry, you mention a weak synapsis in the brains of gun owners, but a weak synapse is better than none, as illustrated by your lame journalism. As you should know, grouping people and saying they are all something-or-another, is false by definition. You should admit to losing the argument because you call names and create titles for, in this case. gun owners. I don’t know where you were raised, but be aware that Colorado has a large hunting, fishing and sporting history. Please leave that history alone, and if you don’t like, it move away, far away, perhaps to England or Europe.