There are a lot of people out there that have strong opinions on what you should do. This is true about pretty much anything, and they're not shy about telling you how much you suck for not sharing their opinions about what you should do. This is especially true on guns.
After all, while support for gun control seems to be waning, probably in part due to the fact that the homicide rate is dropping like a meteor on the dinosaurs, the support hasn't gone away entirely. Too many people still want it.
But there seems to be a limit to how far some of these folks want to go to make it happen.
For example, they're not willing to foot the bill.
There’s an interesting report in Health Affairs Scholar which adds a new dimension to the adage that “money talks and B.S. walks.”
According to the authors— Robert Zeithammer, Supriya Kapur, Diana Silver and James Macinko—“While support for firearm restrictions in alcohol-serving venues is widespread, even modest implementation costs significantly reduce public backing.” It is an interesting read, and the authors deserve credit for broaching a subject which has gotten very little attention. Simply put: “How much are you willing to pay for the restrictive ‘feel good’ law you want to impose?”
The UCLA Anderson Review looked at the report and summed it up: Setting an annual tax of, say, $100 per taxpayer “seems to erode backing for restrictions on guns in alcohol-serving establishments.” In other words, people are keen about gun control so long as they don’t have to pay for it.
Amusingly, the UCLA Anderson Review observes, “The results suggest voters, given a price for a law, can be stingy, even in matters of public safety.”
...A $100 Tax Changes Attitudes Toward Firearm Restrictions
As noted in the study abstract, “Results show that when no enforcement costs are included, a majority of the respondent sample weighted to voting-eligible Americans (56%-74%, depending on the restricted group and venue size) supports firearm restrictions, with support exceeding 65% for restrictions in large venues. However, introducing a $100 annual cost reduces support: significant majority support remains only for restricting combinations of felons, intoxicated people, or those with alcohol-related convictions and only in large venues.”
How’s that for a strategy to cool the verbal jets of gun prohibitionists? For each restrictive law they force on gun owners, they get billed for their enthusiasm.
While this may initially seem humorous to Second Amendment activists, Zeithammer, Kapur, Silver and Macinko have actually cracked open a “Pandora’s Box” of sorts, which amounts to an uncomfortable revelation: Gun control supporters aren’t so willing to “put their money where their mouth is.” The four researchers may have done a major public service.
See, they're more than willing to make demands when we're the ones paying for it. They'll talk about mandatory storage laws, for example, but they don't see it as them footing the bill. That's probably why there's not nearly as much support for mandatory "buybacks" as for bans. It's not that they don't care about those that are already in circulation; it's that they know taxpayer money will be needed to support such a "buyback."
And if you make it a mandatory surcharge, where there's a $100 annual cost specifically to enforce the laws they want, suddenly they don't want them.
Keep in mind that $100 annually isn't exactly a ton of money for a 12-month period. Having to pay it all together is tougher, but that's kind of the point. If they really believe in these sorts of laws, why aren't they willing to fund them directly? I think we should know exactly how much we're paying for every government program out there, if for no other reason than to make sure people know good and well how much of their tax money is going for various things. Then we can decide rationally whether we really want something like USAID or not.
I can't say I see a problem with this, and I agree, the researchers may have accidentally performed an amazing public service.