• Steve@communick.news
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    1 month 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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      This is pretty fucking elitist.

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

          • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 month ago

            Same can be said for OP and Steve over here, the former of whom posted it presumably because they take it at face value as a good idea, and the latter defending it because he clearly does.

            In times like that it can be a worthy pursuit both to refute the premise, as the poster who said “this is pretty fucking elitist” was doing, and to remind people of the nature of comedians, as you have done.

        • StaticFalconar@lemmy.world
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          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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          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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        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.

        • Arbiter@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

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

          • lud@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            Since when do the rich use guns for oppression?

            They use money, not guns.

          • Steve@communick.news
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            1 month 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.

            • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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              Those thousands of lives will be consumed by the rich, they don’t need guns to accomplish this.

              Those thousands need guns because it’s the only way to stop the rich.

            • lightnsfw
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              1 month ago

              What effective means do they have against the rich?

        • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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          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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            1 month 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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              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.

    • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
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      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.

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    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

    • BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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      Yeah, it will accomplish ensuring poor people have a harder time exercising their rights. Apparently that is something California is very interested in.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
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      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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        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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    1 month ago

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

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      This is the fundamental problem with gun regulation at the state level – they can be effectively abrogated by neighboring states with more lax regulation. FiveThirtyEight did a piece on this a while ago. In that article they show how strict gun laws in Illinois, California, and Maryland are defeated by guns flowing in from the surrounding states with more lax laws. The vast majority of gun crime is committed with guns which are illegally possessed, but were initially obtained through legal means.

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        That’s why Mexico is suing Arizona, and maybe Texas? Cali has strict gun laws so the cartels can’t get guns here. They have no issues getting guns in AZ and TX

        • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
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          Yeah, that’s basically the legal theory of the suits. It’s pretty novel and there are a lot of issues with it.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          Big part of the modern drug trade is fueled by arms sales passing South as collateral.

          US arms exports are paid for with Latin American drug money. And those arms help gangs engage in the human trafficking they need to produce recreational narcotics and amphetamines at industrial scale.

          • jnk@sh.itjust.works
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            Wait are you implying that regulating fire arms in USA would help to deal with human traffic and drugs from mexico?

            I mean it makes sense, but doesn’t certain people hate mexicans and like guns a bit too much? Are they using their brains at all?

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              Wait are you implying that regulating fire arms in USA would help to deal with human traffic and drugs from mexico?

              More describing the economic incentives of the opposition.

              I mean it makes sense, but doesn’t certain people hate mexicans and like guns a bit too much?

              On paper, sure. But in practice the folks profiting from the exchange can just blame the drugs and the crime on stupid weak leftists in government to deflect blame from the arms trafficking.

              Are they using their brains at all?

              Garbage in, garbage out. If all your information comes from gun-sponsored sources, you’ll end up with gun-sponsored views.

            • AA5B@lemmy.world
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              You can’t even argue that Mexican Cartel members have a constitutional right to bear arms.

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        Even though the law can be circumvented, it nonetheless provides resistance. Traveling to another state, filling out paperwork, paying extra money, etc all provide additional obstacles to overcome. If someone was having an acute mental problem and felt compelled to eat a barrel, a simple few hours delay in acquiring a gun can make all the difference. For someone planning on using a gun for criminal activity, at some point they might just consider employment as an easier alternative if acquiring a gun is too much of a pain.

        We have already seen this effect in reverse with regard to immigration. Legal immigration is such a painful crapshoot that people are willing to surrender their fate to cartels as an alternative.

        • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
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          That’s great and all, but the data are in the article. Your hypotheticals don’t do much to change the numbers of guns flowing in from other states. If your argument is that the counterfactual would be even more gun crime, you’re welcome to make it; it’s just a really weak argument to lean into.

    • Captain Howdy@lemm.ee
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      Wait… You’re telling me that they continue to do crimes with guns even when the guns are illegal? Criminals? Really? I refuse to believe it.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      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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        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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          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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            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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              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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          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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          So fewer guns to steal = few crimes?

          Sounds like extra taxes are a good idea.

            • Glytch@lemmy.world
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              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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            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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      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.

  • Omgboom@lemmy.zip
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    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.

    • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
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      The constitutionality of this tax will come down to how the Roberts Court wants to interpret and apply the 200-year old concept first issued in an opinion during the Marshall Court – the power to tax is the power to destroy. The government cannot use its authority to levy taxes in a manner which significantly encroaches on the exercise of an enumerated right. I like CA’s idea here, but it’s all going to come down to implementation.

    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Tbf, define “refuses.” Suppressors, SBS, SBR, 1932; Background Checks, 1968; Full auto ban, 1986; AWB, 1994-2004, expired, little to no measurable impact on crime.

      And yet they push and push to get the AWB back despite the fact that those guns make up less than .01% of our gun deaths, why would I think that rounding down that .01% would be “enough” and they wouldn’t then progress to handguns which are demonstrably the highest contributing type of arms? Frankly there has been those compromises in the past and yet they continue to push already, it wouldn’t make sense for them to stop pushing for the 99.99% once they get the .01%, they just know the “well handguns for protection I understand but those assault weapons are automagical murder machines” crowd won’t go for it yet.

      • Wogi@lemmy.world
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        National firearm registry. Have all the guns you want, but be accountable for them.

        • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Ehhh no thanks. States like NY and CA which publish a “steal guns from me” list with your name and address are not exactly privacy friendly. I mean, “what if the database got hacked,” but also what if CA and NY just publish them as public knowledge without the need to “hack,” because they do. Furthermore, there’s already 600,000,000 unregistered firearms in ~50% of the populations hands most of whom refuse to register, it’s not even effective enough to make a difference. And with that whole AWB thing, they can’t really take them all right now, but with a registry they could, and that’s why they push for it so hard. Those of us who see this writing on the wall are hesitant to give them the power they seek.

    • DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      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.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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      Neither side wants to negotiate here. Democrats want bans. Republicans want as much access as possible. Both sides view compromise as a temporary step towards their ultimate goal.

      • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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        With respect, that’s bullshit. Common sense gun reform is on the table almost monthly, after every single mass shooting pretty much… which happen with great regularity. The simplest of measures is treated like a slippery slope to full bans and so nothing at all is allowed to progress. From the outside looking in, a nationwide firearms ban is a bogeyman used to prevent anything happening at all.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          The simplest of measures is treated like a slippery slope to full bans

          Is it not a first step leading to full bans? Look at this very thread.

          • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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            Public opinion does not equal policy, and what you’re effectively saying is that there is no negotiation possible. Moving an inch could lose you a foot, so no movement is possible.

            Don’t pretend that it is both sides who refuse to “negotiate”, when one side views any change at all as unacceptable compromise.

            • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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              Moving an inch could lose you a foot, so no movement is possible.

              I mean, this is a succinct description. You’re saying it as a criticism, but it makes perfect sense.

              • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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                Great. So everyone will just continue dying or being in fear of dying in mass shootings, regular shootings, and more. This will continue for the rest of time because one side is scared of making a positive change to the situation.

          • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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            there’s already bans on military hardware sales to civilians. Explain why we should exclude bans on anti aircraft guns from slippery slope hypotheticals

            • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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              Bringing up bans on military hardware actually supports the slippery slope argument very strongly. You’re already thinking about bans.

          • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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            No. Same as relaxing gun laws is not the first step leading to no gun laws. That logic is idiotic.

      • stanleytweedle@lemmy.world
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        Democrats want bans. Republicans want as much access as possible.

        Can you elaborate? This is demonstrably false so I figured I’d give you the opportunity to explain what you meant with such a ridiculously simplistic and nonsensical statement.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          It’s a generalization but absolutely true. I’m not going to get drawn into a “aha! But this one Republican dude in New Hampshire supports restrictions on guns therefore you are wrong” bullshit fest.

          • stanleytweedle@lemmy.world
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            Sounds like you think truth is just a feeling. I tend to look for collections of objective facts to garner truth but I get that your way is less challenging.

            • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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              If I suspected you might be actually conversing in good faith, I’d expend the effort. But I’ve seen this kind of rhetorical trap before. It’s not quite sealioning, but similar.

              • stanleytweedle@lemmy.world
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                Yet you’ll expend the effort to explain why you won’t expend any effort to make an actual point- lol.

                I’m starting to think maybe you don’t know what you’re talking about at all ;)

                • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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                  Big difference between saying “ha I’m not falling for that” and finding sources. The former requires little effort.

      • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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        Am Democrat. Do not want bans.

        I’m fine with permits after training, safe storage laws, registration, and universal background checks. We also need to do a hell of a lot better in tracking down the source of illegal guns once they are obtained. If it was registered and never reported stolen, they need to question the registered owner.

        • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Did you know it’s already a felony to not report a stolen gun? If they track it down that far they’d be more than “questioned.”

            • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              In most states, not just CA. And even most without a “duty to report” lets call it, can and will punish you if an unreported gun is used in a crime. Besides, not reporting a criminal stole your gun a good way to get falsely imprisoned for murder which usually people don’t want to do, so even without laws requiring one to do so or not specifically enumerating punishment for not reporting if it is used in a crime, it is still seen as a generally good idea to prevent said false convictions.

              I didn’t downvote you, can’t answer for them.

                • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  You’d have to look into state laws and previous cases where a gun purchase being tied to some murder got someone convicted. I’m not going to hunt it down to prove it to you but you’re free to spend your time doing so.

        • uis@lemm.ee
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          I’m fine with permits after training

          Does it include half of Russia? Because if you have wrong chromosome, you will be trained with weapons even if you actively avoid it.

          they need to question the registered owner.

          Also what to do if owner is too dead for this?

    • lud@lemm.ee
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      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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        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.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          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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            Even if they huff and puff

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

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

    • CoCo_Goldstein@lemmy.world
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      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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      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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          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.

  • Stern@lemmy.world
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    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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      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.

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        States have long been called “laboratories of democracy” for exactly this reason. I’d actually argue that the current climate calcifies the process of policy experimentation in states and among them.

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      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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      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.

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      Of course, it’s illegal for an FFL to sell a handgun to anyone with an out of state license unless they ship it to an FFL in the person’s home state for the NICs check and to make sure it complies with local laws. As for rifles, while there is no federal requirement stating the same, you’d be very hard pressed to find an FFL that is going to sell one to a person with an IL license unless it goes through the same system, all FFLs especially in border states know IL laws and are obviously hesitant to run afoul of them, iirc there is actually a local IL statute prohibiting the buying of long guns out of state without sending them through an FFL (like federally for pistols but for IL specifically with the long guns too) in it’s own that the neighboring FFLs would get in trouble with the ATF for violating, not to mention FOID and standard capacity mag bans

    • daltotron@lemmy.world
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      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.

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
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    I think it was Chris Rock who said something like “if you want to reduce gun violence then you gotta make bullets more expensive.” You’re gonna see a drop in gunshots if every bullet costs $1k.

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      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.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      This is a great idea. The flood of illegal and stolen weapons wouldn’t be taxed but they all need ammo to do harm.

      I know home made ammo exists but I find it hard to believe it would ever be more than niche

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          They’re naive and desperately want to do literally anything since Republican fascists are focussed on not letting actual common-sense laws move forward.

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            You’re just putting more power into their hands. It’s not like the cops aren’t fascist, and we all know what they really protect. Not to mention seems like a ton of money that will go into red states.

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            Also, can you tell me more about who is blocking common sense gun laws? I’m not saying I think you’re wrong, I just want to learn more about who I should speak out against.

    • Fades@lemmy.world
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      Hey pal, let me let you in on a secret – bullets have already been getting more expensive, especially since COVID.

      https://publination.co/cost-of-ammunition-skyrocketing-in-2024/

      Maybe a comedian doesn’t have the secret key to gun control after all…

      You’re gonna see a drop in gunshots if every bullet costs $1k.

      First of all, that’s simply not true. Do you have any idea how easy reloading is? You seriously think these criminals are gonna just stop shooting people because they can’t buy bullets at wallmart no more? Even with that aside, the last thing we need is giving the rich and powerful gangs a monopoly on firearms.

      Common sense gun control isn’t that hard, instead of pushing things that don’t make any sense we should be pressuring the GOP fascists more.

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

      • Crismus@lemmy.world
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        All this does is impact legal gun owners and makes it so the poor don’t ever have the means to defend themselves.

        The only thing that increasing legal firearm costs does is keep the elites able to protect themselves and their lifestyles while making sure nobody can rise up against them.

        This means more people are unable to practice with their guns, which has the opposite effect of making things safer.

        Firearms are tools and an inalienable right for all people, not just the wealthy. The push by the elites to attack Gun Rights are so that nobody can oppose them when they keep increasing prices and their greed becomes an even greater burden to the rest of the population. Crime has been going down for decades, but the anti-gun groups still push the fear of guns.

        The amount of spree shootings are almost insignificant for the majority of kids at schools, but they constantly make kids afraid of guns by pushing the shooter drills.

        The fix to gun violence is fixing economic inequality. Stop treating the majority of the population as slaves and increase wages and break up the Oligopoly that controls goods and services. Stop allowing stock market manipulation and bribery. Start charging the wealthy people and multinational corporations taxes like they used to. Stop giving the wealthy people the ability to pay less Social Security taxes and let disabled people not be forced below the poverty line. Force the Stock Market to pay dividends instead of allowing stock price be the only value from investing. Finally, bring back pension funds, stop qualified immunity, regulate media companies again, and fix the election spending problems.

        Every single one of those changes will do more to stop violence than increasing taxes on firearms and ammo. Hell, they started promoting smoking again because CHIP funding was down because too many people stopped smoking and the rich didn’t want to pay for childhood health insurance.

        I’m glad I don’t live in California anymore, but criminals don’t pay taxes and won’t ever follow gun laws. Also, police have no duty to protect, so their only job in modern society is to fill out the paperwork when some criminal kills an unarmed person. Most police will shoot the civilians they were called to protect from the criminals and will be rewarded with paid vacation time. Making it more expensive to protect yourself and your family really is a bad call.

        Oh, and just a FYI; when Biden reschedules Cannabis, it will make every dispensary under the control of the DEA. So the DEA can just close them all down or make up new rules to steal all the profit from Marijuana sales nationwide. The DEA will become the supplier of all Cannabis and everything that the last decade did for legalization will disappear.

        Nobody in Government really has a clue and the Supreme Court will keep steamrolling our rights.

        • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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          The fix to gun violence is fixing economic inequality. Stop treating the majority of the population as slaves and increase wages and break up the Oligopoly that controls goods and services. Stop allowing stock market manipulation and bribery. Start charging the wealthy people and multinational corporations taxes like they used to. Stop giving the wealthy people the ability to pay less Social Security taxes and let disabled people not be forced below the poverty line. Force the Stock Market to pay dividends instead of allowing stock price be the only value from investing. Finally, bring back pension funds, stop qualified immunity, regulate media companies again, and fix the election spending problems.

          Doing one impossible thing won’t fix it! We need to do TEN impossible things!

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            Those were many things on their own that would fix the problems. Fixing the pay inequality is the easiest, but making companies pay taxes would be pretty easily if those in power weren’t bribed to not pass those changes.

            Gun laws don’t lower crime, crime has been lowered without them. The media makes good money with pushing the fear aspect, the same way that Trump gets media attention for all the BS coming from his mouth. The media never shows people protecting themselves with gun’s because it goes against their main narrative.

            The main reason billionaires push the anti-gun rhetoric is because they don’t want to face the gun’s when people finally get sick of their exploitation.

  • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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    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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        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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          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.

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            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.

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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.

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            Sure, but can you rob or kill a crip with a pack of Marlboro smooths? People will pay the tax especially to murder people either in disputes or self defense.

            The only thing this could possibly do is make it so people are less likely to go to the range, instead saving ammo for when they need it, in turn making them less practiced and therefore less accurate, in turn making it more dangerous for bystanders in the case of armed defense.

            Gangbangers don’t train at the range, mass shooters don’t need accuracy for “fish in a barrel” so to speak who can’t fire back and are often trapped, and someone murdering their wife or some shit can usually do it at point blank cannot miss range. This bill is not only pointless, it may be actively detrimental. It only serves as an attempt by the leading party to say “see we did something, vote for us again,” while (imo intentionally) not actually solving anything so they can keep running on the issue year after year.

            Sure, it may make some future poor people say “well I’d love to get a gun to protect myself because I live in a bad neighborhood but I can’t afford it,” but is “no guns for poors, only rich whities” really a desirable outcome just because “anything that decreases the number of arms is good even if it really only decreases for the poors and POC?”

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          Those do actually cut down on consumption. Alcohol and tobacco are also addictive; ammo is not.

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      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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        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.

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

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        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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            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.

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          I don’t think pansies is the right word…

          https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/1327/

          This study discusses Nazi gun control. Long story short, the Nazis specifically disarmed minorities (primarily Jews) and prevented them from arming themselves legally, whilst making it easier and easier for the ‘right people’ to defend themselves.

          Funny enough, this kind of law would only serve to take guns and ammunition out of the hands of the poor. Which is exactly why a stupid law like this will get passed, because it goes along with what the conservatives in California govt. want. (In other words, no common sense gun control but they won’t get in the way of something that keeps guns out of poor black people, trans people, not-rich-peoples hands).

          Food for thought, I guess. Not sure why I wrote this.

      • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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        Yeah, states like Utah, Arizona, Nevada are much too far away and will definitely stop you from buying guns and bullets in their states/ bringing them over the borders.

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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          Do you think people are buying pistols from guns shops and neighboring states and bringing them to California? How about rifles that are illegal in California. Are people buying those at gun shops in other states to?

          Most people reading this far are probably thinking “Yes” because people don’t know shit about gun laws.

          When a dealer sees an out of state license, they have to apply the laws of both the state in which the gun is being sold AND the state in which the buyer resides. When I sold guns in Texas and someone came in from New Jersey to buy a rifle, I had to do a New Jersey background check, run their Firearm Purchaser ID, etc on top of our usual process. I also had to make sure the gun I was selling them was legal in New Jersey.

          Oh - and handguns can’t be transferred to an individual in another state. Period. If someone from another state wantred to buy a handgun from us, we had to ship it to a licensed dealer in their state to complete the transfer. The only exception is for federal Curio and Relic license holder buying an antique pistol that’s been unaltered (e.g. a C&R collector buying an authentic WWII German Luger).

          Ammo: sure. People can buy that out of state easy enough. And I don’t see a problem with that. The person who wants 5,000 rounds of 9mm wants it because they are practicing. If people are going to own guns, they should be able to afford to train on them enough to shoot in a straight line, which is way harder than a lot of you non-gun folk seem to think.

          And I’m way less-suspicious of the guy who wants 5,000 bullets than the guy who wants 5.

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            That’s weird considering I just saw a former cop sell a pistol in California that was definitely illegal to purchase. I asked them about it and apparently it’s fine to purchase it from someone who acquired it legally, as long as they were law enforcement or former law enforcement.

            Also, and I can’t believe this needs to be pointed out, we’re discussing illegally smuggling weapons and ammunition. If your mentality is “but it’s not legal” then I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation. It would not be difficult at all to find someone willing to purchase a gun for you and trade cash for it. They don’t search your car at border crossings, and we haven’t even gotten into ghost guns.

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              Police are able to buy modern pistols in California, so there’s a thriving straw purchase market in California of police officers buying guns just to sell them at insane markups.

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                Seems like this would just succeed in putting money in the hands of the wrong people, no matter how you shake it.

                That, on top of poor people just won’t be able to defend themselves when things inevitably become worse.