• Steve@communick.news
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    4 months ago

    You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control. Men, we need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost five thousand dollars… five thousand dollars per bullet… You know why? Cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars there would be no more innocent bystanders.
    Yeah! Every time somebody get shot we’d say, ‘Damn, he must have done something … Shit, he’s got fifty thousand dollars worth of bullets in his ass.’
    And people would think before they killed somebody if a bullet cost five thousand dollars. ‘Man I would blow your fucking head off…if I could afford it.’ ‘I’m gonna get me another job, I’m going to start saving some money, and you’re a dead man. You’d better hope I can’t get no bullets on layaway.’
    So even if you get shot by a stray bullet, you wouldn’t have to go to no doctor to get it taken out. Whoever shot you would take their bullet back, like “I believe you got my property.”

    ― Chris Rock

    • Arbiter@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      This is pretty fucking elitist.

      If you don’t want guns go all in and ensure the elites cannot have them either.

        • StaticFalconar@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Except the top voted comment for being the answer is a joke says a lot about how much people are willing to actually think about a solution that isnt something far fetched.

        • Steve@communick.news
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          4 months ago

          It’s a simple, easily enforceable policy, with no constitutional hangups.
          Gun deaths will absolutely plummet. Lives will be saved.
          But sure, lets not do that because the rich yada yada yada.

      • Steve@communick.news
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        4 months ago

        It’s a simple, easily enforceable policy, with no constitutional hangups.
        Gun deaths will absolutely plummet. Lives will be saved.
        But sure, lets not do that because the rich yada yada yada.

        • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          Except that bullets are a hell of a lot easier to make than guns are. Black market bullets would be rampant and it would be difficult to do anything about it.

          • Steve@communick.news
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            4 months ago

            Black market bullets would also be very expensive.
            Why sell them for 1$ when the alternative legal option is $5K?
            They’d sell for something like $4K, because why not?

            • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              That’s not how supply cost and pricing work. Basically it would be cost of material + cost of capital spread out over life of equipment + labor costs + cost of being caught multiplied by risk of being caught + a profit margin. The risk of being caught would likely be pretty damn low so you might increase their cost by 25-50% if you’re lucky but it sure as hell will be nowhere near $4000. Demand would be different but likely not enough to matter much.

        • Arbiter@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Yes, let’s further consolidate power for the rich, give them even more tools for oppression.

          • lud@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            Since when do the rich use guns for oppression?

            They use money, not guns.

          • Steve@communick.news
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            4 months ago

            In exchange for thousands of lives? Thats an easy trade.
            We can use other, far more effective means, to limit the power of the rich.
            The power of the rich doesn’t even have anything to do with their access to bullets anyway.

    • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Iirc that’s how Australia does it. You need the whole strict background check and training and I believe you can only get ammo at the range.

  • squid_slime@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    Lovely another way to penalise the poor

    Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary

    Karl Marx

    • Nougat@fedia.io
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      4 months ago

      Marx said things like that because he believed that his political and economic theories could only be implemented through violence. That statement was not intended as “workers should be able to protect themselves.” It meant “workers need to go out and proactively kill people.”

      • squid_slime@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        There are plenty of ways to interpret Marx’s writings, yours is certainly one of those ways.

        “By force if ‘necessary’” This part is an important distinction.

  • arin@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Pretty sure the guns i see the criminals use aren’t even legal. Crazy extended mags

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      the guns i see the criminals use

      Are you running up to folks during a bank robbery and asking them for receipts?

      Or is this, like, guns you saw criminals use in a cartoon show?

      • refalo@programming.dev
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        4 months ago

        over 80% of mass shooters at K-12 schools stole guns from family members, according to research funded by the National Institute of Justice

        Stolen and ghost guns absolutely make up a large percentage of the weapons used in crimes, there are many reports and statistics to back this up. If you need some hard data I’ll be happy to provide or you could do a quick web search as well.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Stolen and ghost guns absolutely make up a large percentage of the weapons used in crimes

          You’re leaning hard on the term “stolen” to describe a teenager using a parent’s firearm, particularly when the teen already has regular access to the weapon for target practice.

          Similarly, guns that have been anonymized after purchase aren’t something you can regulate against.

          • AA5B@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Sure, that’s one of the missing links: owners need to be responsible for safeguarding their weapons or face consequences. Either it was an actual theft and the kid faces legal consequences for that too or it was careless behavior on the owner and they face partial consequences for the deaths and devastation

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              owners need to be responsible for safeguarding their weapons or face consequences

              We played this game with Beto O’Rourke. He tanked his electoral prospects by suggesting he’d enforce gun laws like any other governor would enforce drug laws.

              Between the Sandy Hook style conspiracy theories and the NRA hysteria, the onus is never on the gun owners. It’s always on the victims to not get shot.

        • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          How is this relevant at all? If the tax slows the sale of guns, then there will be fewer guns in the future compared to the projected numbers without a tax.

          Fewer guns = less gun violence. This is a well understood dynamic.

          I’m really fucking tired of people like you arguing against harm reduction just because it doesn’t go far enough to actually solve the gun crisis. We never take a step forward because of this attitude.

        • s_s@lemmy.one
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          4 months ago

          So fewer guns to steal = few crimes?

          Sounds like extra taxes are a good idea.

            • Glytch@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Just commenting that “some major cities” is super general especially after they were talking about guns they had supposedly seen personally.

              Also is calling them “ghost guns” supposed to make them scarier? Really? “Unregistered firearms” isn’t spooky enough?

          • AbsentBird@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            I assume they’re more likely to show pictures of the weapon when the gun isn’t legal or has unusual features. I hadn’t even seen a bump stock before that shooting in Navada made them big news.

    • lud@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      The point of most gun control is to reduce the amount of guns not necessarily remove them all.

      Of course at least some criminals will always have guns but lots of deaths could be prevented by just reducing the amount of people with illegal or legal guns.

      It’s also much more likely for a potential criminal to become a criminal with a gun if it’s really easy to get guns, especially if they or someone they know (like parents) already own one.

  • Stern@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Illinois has some fairly strict gun laws… which is why so many guns used in crimes there come from all the states surrounding it. So I ask… do Arizona, Utah, and Nevada have these taxes as well?

    I’m not against gun control, but it seems to me that a state level fix ain’t it.

    • mecfs@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      In the US, especially in this polarised climate, the vast majority of changes to law start with one state, and then another, and then another until slowly it gets adopted around the country.

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      california is big. It may work better than other places, but a fed licensing program would be ideal

    • dan@upvote.au
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      4 months ago

      I’m not against gun control, but it seems to me that a state level fix ain’t it.

      Views like this are why nothing gets done. Starting small is better than doing nothing at all.

      It’s hard to change things for the whole country. It’s a lot easier to change things just in one state and observe the effects. If the changes work, other states may choose to do the same thing.

    • daltotron@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      This is the case for basically every issue, yeah, this is generally why telling people to start with politics at the local level isn’t really a great suggestion for most people.

      You can’t fund inter-city trains at the local level, really, that has to be done at the state level at the very least, usually in a state like california, only, and usually it has to be done with federal funding. If you don’t have inter-city trains or public transit, then it’s hard to make a walkable city. Basically what I’m saying is that it’s not atomizable, it has to be integrated with the rest of the network, which is why even the best US cities are pretty car-centric.

      This is true for a litany of other political issues besides just public transit.

  • Omgboom@lemmy.zip
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    4 months ago

    I’ve been saying for years this was going to be what happens, instead of common sense gun laws they are just going to tax the shit out of it. Which sucks for law abiding responsible gun owners who just want to hunt or defend themselves. This is what happens when one side refuses to come to the negotiating table.

    • HEXN3T
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      4 months ago

      There’s also this crazy thing called an illegal market which circumvents tax entirely

    • DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 months ago

      And sucks even more for POC because statistically they don’t have the monetary means that white people do. So higher taxes mean less legal guns for POC… Oh, wait, the law is working the way it’s intended.

    • lud@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      How often do people really defend themselves with lethal force?

      Are your criminals weird or something? Do they shoot people at every opportunity?

      No, defending property doesn’t justify lethal force.

      • Omgboom@lemmy.zip
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        4 months ago

        I live on a farm, an hour from town. The sheriff response time is about 45 minutes usually. Meth heads roam around looking for stuff to steal. There’s also wild dogs, Coyotes, and also wild pigs that will kill you given the opportunity. I truly hope that I’m never in a position where I have to take a human life. But having a gun is a necessity out here, even if you only have to fire a warning shot to get the crackheads to scatter. I also hunt, not even just for sport, game meat is a not inconsequential portion of our food supply. Wild pigs are a very real concern, they will gore you before you can even blink, and they can run at close to 40 MPH.

        • lud@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          I absolutely get hunting rifles we have a lot of them here and as far as I know they are rarely used or crime.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Maybe don’t let those wild pigs in when they ring your doorbell? Even if they huff and puff

          • dan@upvote.au
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            4 months ago

            Even if they huff and puff

            Be careful - there’s a correlation between huffing, puffing, and houses being blown down.

    • CoCo_Goldstein@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      This is what happens when one side refuses to come to the negotiating table

      Say for the sake of argument, I am President of the NRA and I can persuade my members to agree with whatever comes out of negotiations and you are on the other side, seeking a ‘reasonable compromise’ on gun ownership and some ‘common sense’ gun control legislation.

      What are you willing to compromise on? What are you willing to give up??

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      I don’t get how it’s even constitutional. How are even permitting fees constitutional? I could see having the requirements exist, but I don’t see how forcing a cost can be.

        • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          I would consider it an infringement, do any other rights include a fee? The only reason some states haven’t made it prohibitively expensive is that it is more likely to go to the courts.

    • Zorg@lemmings.world
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      4 months ago

      Where do you think illegally acquired firearms are sourced from?

      PDF: ATF NFCTA vol2 part3, Crime Guns Recovered and Traced
      ATF traced 70.2% (1 million firearms) of submitted ‘crime guns’ to having originally been purchased from a dealer. An additional 22.6% (⅓ million) were from pawnbrokes. [page 7]
      In 12.2% of the cases [page 26] purchaser and possessor was the same.
      One or more guns are stolen in 63% of household burglaries.

      From conclusion page 41:

      Traced crime guns typically originate from the legal supply chain of manufacture (or import), distribution, and retail sale. Crime guns may change hands a number of times after that first retail sale, and some of those transactions may be a theft or violate one or more regulations on firearm commerce.

  • Yeldarb12@toast.ooo
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    4 months ago

    Criminals already have more than enough cash to buy plenty of guns at ridiculously high prices. This is only punishing people that follow the law.

    • jeffw@lemmy.worldOPM
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      4 months ago

      Why ban or tax anything? criminals will get it anyway. Let’s legalize nukes for everyone!!!

  • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Not like most guns used in crimes are stolen or sold illegally after being purchased legally and the actual causes of gun deaths aren’t related to how much guns cost.

    Surely my home state isn’t just trying to grandstand and figure out new revenue streams to find to not fund poor performing schools to improve performance or prospects, providing healthcare, addressing poor police training, helping the homeless, addressing working poverty, addressing high cost of living, improving job prospects with a living wages, or any of the other issues that will actually help to address gun deaths.

      • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        There won’t be less ammo out there. Alcohol taxes don’t cut down on alcohol consumption, tobacco taxes don’t cut down on tobacco consumption, and ammo taxes don’t cut down on ammo purchases.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          tobacco taxes don’t cut down on tobacco consumption

          The more expensive cigarettes have gotten, the more people I know have quit. Every time there’s a cigarette tax hike, I’ll hear about someone quitting.

          • Got_Bent@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            The commenter above you was clearly not around in the eighties if they don’t think tobacco consumption has dropped. I’m amused that I’ve seen this argument at least twice in this thread.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              I can only tell you what I’ve experienced in my lifetime, and if it’s generational, it’s not amongst my peers. We’re in our late 40s and we all smoked as teenagers.

        • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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          Those do actually cut down on consumption. Alcohol and tobacco are also addictive; ammo is not.

    • JamesTBagg@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      That’s the real point. This will have no impact on violence, let alone make a dent. It’s about the controlling class disarming the working class. If only Marx had said something about this.

      • orcrist@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        Go pull the other one. Of course it will have an impact on violence. You can argue that the risk is not worth the rewards, but clearly raising prices will deter purchases, and in turn reduce gun violence incidents.

  • timmymac@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    The people shooting people will not be paying these taxes. Another law that punishes law abiding citizens.

      • Cornpop@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        That will never happen luckily, at least not in my life. Would never give up my guns. Too much fun. Founding fathers had some great foresight to first separate the church (although the fucking Christians ignore the shit out of that) and second enshrine gun rights. Would be a real shame if a bunch of pansies were able to ruin that for us.

          • Cornpop@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Don’t hide behind anything. Don’t even carry them around with me. Just love blasting steel targets at my 100 yard range in my front yard. It’s a blast. Try it sometime. Just because some stupid fucks in the city shoot each other doesn’t make it ok to ruin my good time out in the country where I’m not harming anyone.

      • bluewing@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        And makes it so only the wealthy can afford them. Increasing the class divide. Which would give the wealthy even more power over the average citizen than they already have. On the other hand, it should increase money for the politicians to dole out to their best buddies. It also might reduce the population a bit as this might be the last straw for some. Not that criminals care. They ain’t buying them in a store.

        How about if we make it totally illegal for people who live in cites over 40,000 populations to own any type of weapon. That would seem to solve most issues with city violence. Or is there a problem there also?

        Just food for thought. What is seen a good idea at first glance almost always have some kind of unexpected effects that need to be taken into account. Some of which might not be seen until much, much later.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          What about my second home in the mountains? I’m a poor person barely scraping by so when I drive my Bentley there, I need my full auto m-60 to hunt squirrels for dinner

        • orcrist@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          Class warfare is a serious issue, but I’m not seeing the huge threat that emerges from wealthy people having guns when less wealthy people don’t, because the police are already going to support the wealthy people.

          If you want to talk about class warfare, let’s talk about wage theft. Let’s talk about taxing the rich. Let’s talk about universal health care. Let’s talk about inheritance tax and systemic racism. In other words, let’s talk about the big ticket items, not a $200 gun.

          • bluewing@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            If you intend to “Eat the Rich” and prevent wage theft, you will need more than a cardboard sign. Even Tankies understand that to defeat the rich you need more than slogans.

            • orcrist@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              So let me get this straight. You think that if guns are taxed more, all of those poor people in California who are getting ready to violently overthrow the state and national government will be unable to do so. I’m curious when exactly you think they are going to do this. I’m also curious why you think that if they’re going to overthrow the government, they will be incapable of looting a gun shop in order to get their weapons.