From: The Gun Topic: I wonder if this is constitutional?
Entry posted by gpatt0n ·
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In the following piece I conjure the idea that the way to fund mental health care might be to impose an excise tax on the purchase of or distribution of graphically violent content such as TV shows, movies and video games based on the degree of violence depicted in the content.
The biggest problem may be the constitutionality of taxing something so intertwined with speech. However, one quick thought is that the tax may solve this, at least in the context of movies, is a tax on the sale of the tickets. In the case of television, it might be able to be applied to the price of the commercials that adjoin the content.
Just thinking about it.
pubby
The problem isn't too many guns. The problem is not enough guns. Had some of the teachers in that school been through extensive gun training and were armed, perhaps one of them could have stopped the guy before he killed so many.
If you are for banning guns or even just 'assault weapons', please explain to me how you would do it? Are the police going to go to every house in the US asking for all 'assault weapons'? Do you really think that would work? Do you really think the 'bad' people (criminals) are going to voluntarily give up their guns?
The responsible gun owner is not the problem. Assuming that cops are going to go door to door collecting weapons is the most absurd thought imaginable. I mean the it is just not feasible to send 30 cops to every residence and bust down the door. And it is unconstitutional as well.
You're problem is you don't know anything other than the second amendment. Think about the provision regarding expost facto laws. The gun you own today legally is going to be legally owned tomorrow.
The term 'ban' refers to the manufacture and/or consumer marketing of a particular style of weapon or a particular kind of magazine. It says we have 30 million (or whatever number there are) of semi-automatic military-type assault rifles in households and we don't need 30 million more. Enough is enough ... pull them off the shelves in Walmart, Bass Pro shop, your local pawn shop and the sports authority (assuming they sell the dang things.)
Mr. Gun Manufacturer, you can stockpile the one's you have and sell them to LEO, to military contracts or possibly, if we get another president like Reagan, trade them for hostages in Iran ... but you can't market them to the survivalists after June 1, 2013.
The DA in Newark or the Mayor in NY will offer bounties for guns and some people will turn in old bolt action .22's, rusty with pitted barrel Barretas, and the occasional bushmaster to get them out of the house and knowing they don't want their teen to use the weapon for a suicide; or to knock of the 7/11. There are reasons folks turn in weapons some will. Others will be stolen, illegally dealt or otherwise become black market items that, bye and bye are confiscated as evidence in criminal proceedings and are destroyed. Over the next 50 years, with possible further restrictions, the number of guns may shrink from 300,000,000 million to 275,000,000. Gun deaths drop as more of the guns are in the hands of responsible owners and fewer are easily available to criminals and gun violence drops, in large part because guns and associated violence is just not as popular culturally. A drop of ten percent is better than a ten percent increase. A drop of twenty or thirty percent in violence is even better.
But no one is coming you house to take your guns except possibly criminals and if obviously, if you're threatened and cap them in the act, the crime rate may decline incrementally as well.
Still the problem with gun violence, as we all know, is due to criminals and crazies. Improved access and effectiveness of mental health services will also contribute but possibly the biggest contribution is the understanding by youth and adults alike, that fear is less a factor and the dependence some in society that use guns as a medical aid to calm their fears may also subside. If it does, it will probably be because the media and gun manufacturers also grasp that glorifying violence and hyping fear are no longer paths to success. Heck, maybe you create a new tax - not a lot of money maybe - that says if you graphically depict a murder by gun you have to pay $0.03 cents a thousand viewers (the tax being used to fund mental health services). A graphic 'death' by knife might cost $0.025 per thousand. Similarly, a duty may be assessed on the audiences even of the cable networks for the same mental health program for each hour devoted to reporting of a murder or other crime on broadcast or cable. Local television stations may have to pay a duty for reporting violent murders from outside their ADI or DMA. Violent video games - graphic shooters or slashers - get a special tax added, also earmarked to mental health.
Those who include that kind of content in their media because it attracts audiences would contribute to the fallout including the subtle level of fear such programming instills. They don't want to pay the tax, show something else and don't pay the for violent content tax.
The cumulative effect of these kinds of, what I think are common sense reforms, will lower the level of fear generated by media and entertainment, will provide a funding mechanism for mental health services. Heck, instead of an outright ban on 'military assault type rifles' a $100 license fee or excise tax, the proceeds dedicated to mental health services, might be an alternative.
Again, no one is coming after your guns. Momentum in society may change overnight - the concept of the tipping point - but true change takes years if not decades.
the constitution's goal for the future is not a 'perfect union' ... just a more perfect union, a better union. As stated in another post, a gun under every pillow is not the American dream; it is the American nightmare.
Guns remain the only consumer product whose primary purpose is to kill humans. Sure a car might kill people and even might be used to kill; but its primary purpose is to get you from point A to B. But guns aren't apriori bad just as people aren't apriori bad. However, bad people with guns are unequivocally bad. We need fewer of both and engineering society for that output represents progress to a more perfect union.
The idea that someone is going to come get your guns is a straw man argument created by those whose goal is to sell you more guns and ammo today and even more tomorrow. You don't owe them a damn thing. We all just need to be willing to compromise for the greater good and frankly, they can suck it up just like the tobacco barons. Oh, you know you can still buy a pack of cigs.
pubby
Source: The Gun Topic:
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