Indeed true, stuff like insurance, safe storage, accountability.
None of which this measure addresses (except to demand that gun owners have an insurance policy provision that no one sells).
In any event, this will almost certainly fail legal challenges.
At least those the People in principle agreed to.
The tax is not meant to stop that.
The tax is meant to help to pay for the cost of incidents like that.
It’s really just asking gun owners to pay their share of the cost to the community that having easy access to guns costs the rest of us.
The root cause is easy access to guns. For decades people have tried to address that, but for some reason, gun advocates refuse to allow any measures that would keep guns out of the hands of the criminal or irresponsible.
The ones with a feels driven agenda are the gun advocates who will cry and scream up a storm if they are asked to make the slightest effort to keep their guns out of the hands of criminals.
And that’s the difference between guns and cars. When someone wants to kill someone, they usually get a gun, not a car.
No, it’s an acceptance of that fact, and simply asking them to help to pay for the harm that having that easy access to guns they insist on costs the community.
No, it does not. It presumes that some level of gun control to keep guns out of the hands of criminals would have positive utility, but is fought against by gun advocates. So, since gun advocates want criminals to have guns, then someone has to pay for the damage that they do to the community.
Yes, but not for gun owners when their guns are “lost”, “stolen”, or sold, and end up being used to harm the community. That’s when you don’t want to have any responsibility at all.
Oh, yes, I’m quite sure that the gun advocates will do everything in their power to avoid the responsibility for paying for the damages that their advocacy does to the community. They’ll probably win, too, as much of the judiciary in our country is pretty right leaning at this time.
Just because gun advocates want our communities to be harmed by their guns, and they don’t want any responsibility for it doesn’t mean that those who wish to try to alleviate the damage that guns do shouldn’t at least try.
No one says they do not want any responsibility. Every gun comes with a 11% Federal excise tax.
There are laws in CA that require guns be locked up in homes with children. All new guns are sold with locks.
In Santa Clara County there are high fees for a CCW permit.
Residents of San Jose who own guns already pay taxes that support the Police dept, etc.
The 21st Amendment doesn’t mention taxes at all, as far as I can tell. Excise taxes are allowed by the original Constitution itself, Article I, Section 8, Clause 1.
This measure would do zero to actually keep guns out of the hands of criminals, and so right off the bat you’re failing the admonition upthread:
No, gun advocates do not “want” criminals to have guns, and making that accusation is threadshitting.
No, they’ll win for the simple reason that the state of California has rules for what ordinances counties and cities can pass locally and which are reserved to the state government level. That’s merely the first and most trivial of the legal problems with this measure.
If this country was serious about controlling community costs we’d have things like universal health coverage. My first impression was this is a way for the wealthy to keep their guns and make it hard for those poor and dark people to have any, but I haven’t studied the proposal in depth.
This was my guess as well. From the linked article they seem to think the tax will be a couple of dollars per year. If it’s under $5 annually I don’t see a big deal. It makes people feel good, doesn’t accomplish anything, and doesn’t hurt poor or minority gun owners
I wonder if the city plans on taxing itself for the guns that its police officers use.
This is the sort of thing I was referring to earlier when I said that guns weren’t the root cause. It’s not normal in other first world countries to have entire tent cities full of homeless people in the heart of the downtown area. It’s not normal to have multiple crazy people wandering around muttering insane stuff and accosting passers-by.
Sort the healthcare (particularly mental healthcare) thing out and watch a lot of other issues sort themselves out in the process.
It is not the tax so much as buying the insurance that no one can buy. Thus, all guns become illegal.
In order to get the cops behind gun control laws, CA always writes in exemptions for them- doubtless that even for their privately owned collection there will be zero fees and no need for insurance.
Could you clarify that?
Actually, on that last matter, what would concern me is the enforcement for noncompliance being, shall we put it kindly, less than color/class-blind. For which concern my cite is the whole history of policing and of enforcement of prohibitions in this society.
At least how I read the article was that the tax payment would only be checked after an incident (shooting, brandishing, etc) so it would be more of an additional penalty to doing something stupid. You’re correct if this becomes a thing where tax status is checked as part of getting pulled over walking while black then you’re correct the dollar amount doesn’t matter
If I pay the tax, can I go shoot a couple of people who are pissing me off? You know, since I have already paid my share of the social costs.
Seriously, though. When people ask why gun owners won’t support “rational” gun laws, this is why when this sort of crap is considered rational.
To follow up regarding this “gun insurance.” No insurance, no insurance in the world will cover intentional criminal acts. If I shoot my neighbor intentionally, there is not an insurance product in the world that will cover me for that, nary a one. It has forever been against public policy to allow that sort of thing.
If we are talking about accidents, then my homeowners insurance would cover that. But injuries from gun accidents are so vanishingly small (unlike car accidents) that a requirement for those who own guns but don’t otherwise have homeowners or renters insurance is simply oppressive. I also don’t understand the earlier comment about how this “enables” gun ownership. It harms the poor and is extra red tape to keeping a gun. Let’s not go all George Orwell here and just call this an extra “fuck you” to gun owners. See also “voluntary.”
I disagree. the community costs are associated with illicit gun usage. And to agree with Lumpy, why should I pay a tax to take my licensed gun to the range to shoot while a criminal with an unlicensed gun doesn’t pay the tax as he uses it to gun down three people at a bus stop?