# The PROFITS, My Dear! Gun Makers Cash IN!!!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [July 9, 2016, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502 "2016-07-09T21:10:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2016, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/41 "2016-07-10T22:53:01Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> Works fine for another undesirable product – tobacco. The average of all taxes on tobacco sales are about 57% of the total cost; the excise tax alone in New York state is $4.35. The Constitution is fine with it.
See how long an excise tax like that would hold up if the Constitution said the government couldn’t infringe on your right to smoke cigarettes.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2016, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/42 "2016-07-10T23:05:01Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> See how long an excise tax like that would hold up if the Constitution said the government couldn’t infringe on your right to smoke cigarettes.
Some might challenge a gun tax, like they challenged gun laws, and the outcome would largely depend on the makeup of the Court at the time. But the constitution says nothing about the government handing out free guns to those who can’t afford them, or anything else about pricing and sales. If the money curbs demand and is used for good causes related to the terrible costs of gun violence, any court not composed of Scalia/Alito/Thomas type wingnuts should see it as serving a public interest.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2016, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/43 "2016-07-10T23:26:35Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> Some might challenge a gun tax, like they challenged gun laws, and the outcome would largely depend on the makeup of the Court at the time. But the constitution says nothing about the government handing out free guns to those who can’t afford them, or anything else about pricing and sales. If the money curbs demand and is used for good causes related to the terrible costs of gun violence, any court not composed of Scalia/Alito/Thomas type wingnuts should see it as serving a public interest.
Nobody has suggested the government should hand out free guns. And nobody has suggested the government should set low prices on guns. The government doesn’t have any obligation to help people acquire guns. What the law says is that the government cannot hinder people from acquiring guns. That’s what infringement means.
Putting a high tax on guns would be the same as those laws in Texas and Virginia that attempted to close abortion clinics by placing restrictive regulations on them.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2016, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/44 "2016-07-10T23:30:06Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> What the law says is that the government cannot hinder people from acquiring guns.
Keep and bear. Not acquire.
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### Author:  [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2016, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/45 "2016-07-10T23:33:17Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> Some might challenge a gun tax, like they challenged gun laws, and the outcome would largely depend on the makeup of the Court at the time. But the constitution says nothing about the government handing out free guns to those who can’t afford them, or anything else about pricing and sales. If the money curbs demand and is used for good causes related to the terrible costs of gun violence, any court not composed of Scalia/Alito/Thomas type wingnuts should see it as serving a public interest.
It seems plausible to me; I’m sure it must have been suggested in places other than this message board.
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> The Constitution says the government can’t infringe on people keeping or bearing arms. Setting an intentionally high tax on firearms or ammunition would be infringing that right. And denying “access” to firearms is even more clearly an infringement.
I would suspect that you’re on pretty shaky ground with those assertions. The Constitution simply doesn’t address the question of acquiring new firearms (as opposed to ownership of firearms). And it doesn’t address the question of pricing, or of “access.”
I suspect, too, that you’d have trouble putting across the idea that this is analogous to the right to abortion. Abortion is medical care; medical care is not an object. The Constitution guarantees the right to make a private decision about one’s medical care; it’s tough to make the case that that’s the same thing as being guaranteed bargain prices on AR-15s.
But aside from all that, it’s also the case that \*a tax is not equivalent to “denial of access”. \*This is a weakness of right-wing thought: the immediate jump to extremes. If one says “it might make sense to raise the tax on guns,” there is nothing in that statement to justify shrieks about You Are Proposing Pricing Guns Out of Existence. The proposed raise could be _any_ percentage (0.1%, 1%, 10%, or any other number).
The instantaneous assumption that the ONLY possible outcome of a higher excise tax on firearms, is that they will now each cost Ten Billion Dollars is nutty (though typical of the right).
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2016, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/46 "2016-07-10T23:41:06Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> What the law says is that the government cannot hinder people from acquiring guns. That’s what infringement means.
But any gun control law is already an “infringement” in just that sense, and there are plenty of those. A gun tax is arguably a weaker infringement than many gun laws. And even strong laws that were overturned, like in _Heller_, were overturned by a bare majority with vigorous dissent, and would undoubtedly have been decided differently with a different ideological makeup on the bench. So it’s far from clear that the constitution prohibits these things.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/47 "2016-07-11T00:16:16Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Don’t be an idiot…
> [@Sherrerd](#):
>
> Access to guns is not guaranteed by the Constitution.
>
> “Keep” them if you have them, and “bear” them if you have them: yes (assuming you are part of a well-regulated Militia).
>
> Quote the part of the amendment that guarantees “access,” please.
The horse had been led to water…
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> The other poster was trying to claim that for some reason the constitution would prohibit high rates of taxation of any goods or services, and I’m pointing out that this is not so.
Not sure you’re right about that. The feds don’t have unlimited powers, and I’m not seeing where in the Constitution it’s granted to power to ban products arbitrarily. Tobacco can be (if it has’t already been) declared a drug and could be made illegal. However, I think that poster meant to refer to constitutionally protected items, such as guns.
> [@](#):
>
> Nor does the constitution provide for any particular price point or affordability criteria for guns,
But it wouldn’t allow an “undue burden” in acquiring one. At some point, a tax would become prohibitive. If I had to guess (and IANAL, so I could be wrong) I would suspect that a tax designed to limit the sales of guns would be found to be unconstitutional.
> [@](#):
>
> and nor does it guarantee that some lunatic like the one mentioned above should be entitled to have 1500 of them.
True, but it’s unclear the guy was “a lunatic”. I’m not sure the feds could limit the number of guns a person could own-- 20 is OK, but 21 is not?
> [@Elvis](#):
>
> Keep and bear. Not acquire.
Please open a GD thread claiming that if you think it’s true.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/48 "2016-07-11T00:23:34Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Please open a GD thread claiming that if you think it’s true.
Or you could try actually reading what it says. :rolleyes: It would be a great relief from your relentless, and useless, above-it-all-ism.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/49 "2016-07-11T00:40:12Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> Or you could try actually reading what it says.
If you’re so sure of yourself, open the GD thread. Go ahead. Debate it out in the open instead of hiding in The Pit.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/50 "2016-07-11T01:03:39Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> True, but it’s unclear the guy was “a lunatic”. I’m not sure the feds could limit the number of guns a person could own-- 20 is OK, but 21 is not?
I seem to recall his fiancée and her assistant believing that he was a secret government agent and part alien, so I assume he was of the same general mindset.
But on 20 vs. 21, this is an issue you’re going to get with any kind of quantitative regulation. That’s just how it is. I think the limit should be whatever a reasonable person could reasonably need for a stated purpose, but I know this is going to raise the hackles of the constitutionalists again.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/51 "2016-07-11T02:02:52Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> Keep and bear. Not acquire.
> [@Sherrerd](#):
>
> I would suspect that you’re on pretty shaky ground with those assertions. The Constitution simply doesn’t address the question of acquiring new firearms (as opposed to ownership of firearms). And it doesn’t address the question of pricing, or of "access.
I like to hear how you’re going to limit the ability of people to acquire guns without limiting the ability of people to own guns.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/52 "2016-07-11T02:27:50Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#):
>
> To give a tiny indication of the iceberg (of costs), just look at videos of the Dallas incident and the hours and days after it. The extra hours of policing; the burden on the medical establishment (paramedics, ambulances, hospitals, doctors, nurses, etc.); the coming legal entanglements (someone will end up in court); the costs of investigating the crime–personnel, equipment, etc.; the lost wages and also the ongoing medical expenses of those injured. That’s probably just a fraction of the total costs that will ultimately be attributable to that _one_ incident.
>
> None of those costs would have been imposed had the killer been armed with a machete. Sure, a guy with a machete could do some damage–but not at a distance, and not to so many. (And of course if anyone wants to raise the excise taxes on machetes, too, that would be fine.)
So do we fine/tax car manufacturers for all the associated costs that go with car ownership? The police presence required to keep drivers in line alone is probably an order of magnitude more (if not 2) than what is involved with firearms.
And that’s not including things like infrastructure like road wear, accidents/injuries, etc… Or not to mention the man-hours lost when people’s cars break down and they can’t work!
Seems to me that if we were serious about fining manufacturers for the consequences of the use of their products, cars would be a great place to start, not guns.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/53 "2016-07-11T02:41:03Z")
Perhaps the 2nd Amendment is silent on the question of acquisition due to an assumption already made explicit. The rationale for the Amendment is the necessity of citizen mililtia. The Founding Fuckups expected the militia to be well-organized and regulated. Most likely, organized at the level of government appropriate to their situation, population density and threat.
So, they might well have assumed that the well-regulated militias would supply the needed weapons. (Lot of advantages to be had with standard and interchangeable weapons.) Having citizens supply their own weapons is more akin to guerrilla resistance than a well-regulated militia. Doesn’t the very phrase bring to mind men in uniform clothing, with uniform equipment? Uniform weapons, with standardized caliber, shot, powder?
It may never have occurred to them to be concerned about individual access to firearms.
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### Author:  [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/54 "2016-07-11T03:10:13Z")
Rather than quote individual responses, I’ll reply generally regarding taxation, acquisition, etc.
I’ll start with the premise: If “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” is to have any force, the people must have a right to acquire the very firearms they are entitled to keep and to bear.
SCOTUS has recognized the principle in [Carey v. Population Svcs. Int’l
431 U.S. 678 (1977)](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/431/678/case.html)
> [@](#):
>
> An instructive analogy is found in decisions after Roe v. Wade, supra,\*\* that held unconstitutional statutes that did not prohibit abortions outright but limited in a variety of ways a woman’s access to them\*\*. Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973); Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52 (1976). See also Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U. S. 809 (1975). The significance of these cases is that they establish that the same test must be applied to state regulations that burden an individual’s right to decide to prevent conception or terminate pregnancy by substantially limiting access to the means of effectuating that decision as is applied to state statutes that prohibit the decision entirely. Both types of regulation
>
> “may be justified only by a ‘compelling state interest’ . . . , and . . . must be narrowly drawn to express only the legitimate state interests at stake.”
>
> Roe v. Wade, supra at 410 U. S. 155. [Footnote 5] See also Eisentadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. at 405 U. S. 463 (WHITE, J., concurring in result). This is so not because there is an independent fundamental “right of access to contraceptives,” but because such access is essential to exercise of the constitutionally protected right of decision in matters of childbearing that is the underlying foundation of the holdings in Griswold, Eisenstadt v. Baird, and Roe v. Wade.
>
> **Limiting the distribution of nonprescription contraceptives to licensed pharmacists clearly imposes a significant burden on the right of the individuals to use contraceptives if they choose to do so.**
And also [Minneapolis Star v. Minnesota Comm’r 460 U.S. 575 (1983)](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/460/575/) that held that a tax on paper and ink products violated the constitution.
Then there is [Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia 448 U.S. 555 (1980)](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/448/555/case.html):
> [@](#):
>
> But arguments such as the State makes have not precluded recognition of important rights not enumerated. Notwithstanding the appropriate caution against reading into the Constitution rights not explicitly defined, the Court has acknowledged that certain unarticulated rights are implicit in enumerated guarantees. For example, the rights of association and of privacy, the right to be presumed innocent, and the right to be judged by a standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal trial, as well as the right to travel, appear nowhere in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. Yet these important but unarticulated rights have nonetheless been found to share constitutional protection in common with explicit guarantees. [Footnote 16] The concerns expressed by Madison and others have thus been resolved; **fundamental rights, even though not expressly guaranteed, have been recognized by the Court as indispensable to the enjoyment of rights explicitly defined**.
(my bold in all of the above)
Recently when the Marinara Islands gun control scheme was struck down as unconstitutional, they imposed a $1,000 tax on firearms. Given the low per capita income of the region, this is clearly an infringement and a near ban. This will be litigated so perhaps the tax question will be answered directly.
In any case, the right to acquire firearms is part of the core of the 2nd amendment right in the 9th circuit. See [Teixeira v. Alameda County](https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/05/16/13-17132.pdf):
> [@](#):
>
> Here, there is no question that an ordinance restricting the
> commercial sale of firearms would burden “the right of a lawabiding,
> responsible citizen to possess and carry a weapon,”
> Chovan, 735 F.3d at 1138 (internal quotation marks omitted)
> (emphasis omitted), because it would inhibit his ability to
> acquire weapons.6 We are therefore satisfied that such a
> regulation comes close to the core of the Second Amendment
> right.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/55 "2016-07-11T04:18:10Z")
> [@elucidator](#):
>
> Perhaps the 2nd Amendment is silent on the question of acquisition due to an assumption already made explicit. The rationale for the Amendment is the necessity of citizen mililtia. The Founding Fuckups expected the militia to be well-organized and regulated. Most likely, organized at the level of government appropriate to their situation, population density and threat.
>
> So, they might well have assumed that the well-regulated militias would supply the needed weapons. (Lot of advantages to be had with standard and interchangeable weapons.) Having citizens supply their own weapons is more akin to guerrilla resistance than a well-regulated militia. Doesn’t the very phrase bring to mind men in uniform clothing, with uniform equipment? Uniform weapons, with standardized caliber, shot, powder?
>
> It may never have occurred to them to be concerned about individual access to firearms.
Actually, during the Revolutionary War period, it was really dependent on the particular colony as to whether the militia was armed by the state or showed up with their own weapons. Later, with the Militia Act of 1792, the militiamen were required to provide their own arms:
> [@](#):
>
> “That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock”
(and some other stuff about cartridges, bayonets, belts, flints, etc…)
And, it wasn’t just a tiny percentage of selected people either. It was pretty much EVERYONE, save slaves and the old.
> [@](#):
>
> That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act.
So in large part, it was indeed an individual right to have militia-type weapons. It’s since been superseded by subsequent militia legislation, but after reading this, I have little doubt they meant the 2nd Amendment to protect individual gun ownership.
An interesting historical tidbit: [The individual mandate component of Obamacare was in some part, preceded by this very legislation that literally mandated that people buy guns.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/06/26/george-washingtons-individual-mandates/)
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/56 "2016-07-11T05:15:47Z")
So? Its still about the militia. It could have served the purposes of safe and staid city folk who did not want to be taxed in order to protect frontiersmen. Why would a haberdasher in Boston want to be taxed to buy a weapon for a settler in Kentucky? Enlist them in a militia and let them buy their own damned muskets!
Remember, the USA did not always have the unanimous mutual regard that it enjoys today! Personally, I think the main reason the Constitution has so many checks and balances is that nobody writing the thing trusted each other any further than “Little Jimmy” Madison could throw George Washington!
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/57 "2016-07-11T06:37:47Z")
Am I correct that there is already a 10% or 11% federal excise tax on guns and ammunition? Is anyone here claiming that those taxes (along with added sales tax) are unconstitutional? What if the excise tax were raised to 20%? Or 40%?
(Off-topic: Several decades ago California had no sales tax on newspapers or magazines. I thought of this as a tribute to the First Amendment and the value of a free press, and regretted the exemption’s repeal.)
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### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/58 "2016-07-11T07:21:55Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> Am I correct that there is already a 10% or 11% federal excise tax on guns and ammunition? Is anyone here claiming that those taxes (along with added sales tax) are unconstitutional? What if the excise tax were raised to 20%? Or 40%?
I wonder too. Have high taxes on a Constitutional right ever been ruled un-Constitutional?
What if there were a 500000% tax on firearms or abortions?
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/59 "2016-07-11T08:50:29Z")
> [@bump](#):
>
> Seems to me that if we were serious about fining manufacturers for the consequences of the use of their products, cars would be a great place to start, not guns.
The consequence of cars is transportation. The consequence of guns is someone or something being shot and probably killed. Seems to be what they’re for. Which is why guns in America is such a huge national problem that some seem completely blind to.
> [@septimus](#):
>
> Am I correct that there is already a 10% or 11% federal excise tax on guns and ammunition? Is anyone here claiming that those taxes (along with added sales tax) are unconstitutional? What if the excise tax were raised to 20%? Or 40%?
I believe 10% for pistols and 11% for rifles and ammo.
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> What if there were a 500000% tax on firearms or abortions?
Probably just what you might imagine would happen. But not if it was 20% or 40%. And I don’t know how abortions became a standard of comparison other than just being “something conservatives don’t like”, since abortions aren’t requested arbitrarily or on some whim and don’t have price-driven demand.
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### Author:  [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2016, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-profits-my-dear-gun-makers-cash-in/759502/60 "2016-07-11T09:03:05Z")
So profit is a dirty word in America now?
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