June 24th 2013
Make Gun Companies Pay Blood Money
NOTE: - In our article 6/22/13, "Federal nullification efforts mounting in states" there is reference made to the Supremacy Clause. There is now a footnote memo that has been added to that page to expand and clarify it, following information kindly received from Alan Korwin of Gunlaws.com.
Well, here we go again! More "blame the gun" rhetoric, as if this is going to solve anything. Perhaps further taxes should be levied on automobiles, kitchen knives and baseball bats etc. Note at the end of the article, the author's email addresses, should you wish to give your own opinion!
(Comment has been added after article.)
By Lucinda M. Finley And John G. Culhane, June 23rd, 2013
Article Source
GUN manufacturers have gone to great lengths to avoid any moral responsibility or legal accountability for the social costs of gun violence — the deaths and injuries of innocent victims, families torn apart, public resources spent on gun-related crime and medical expenses incurred.
But there is a simple and direct way to make them accountable for the harm their products cause. For every gun sold, those who manufacture or import it should pay a tax. The money should then be used to create a compensation fund for innocent victims of gun violence.
This proposal is based on a fundamentally conservative principle — that those who cause injury should be made to "internalize" the cost of their activity by paying for it. Now, gun manufacturers and sellers are mostly protected from lawsuits by federal law.
As it happens, a model for this approach already exists. Under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, those injured by vaccines are eligible for compensation from a fund financed by an excise tax on the sale of every dose of vaccine. In creating this no-fault system in the 1980s, Congress sought to provide care for those injured by vaccines while protecting manufacturers from undue litigation.
Vaccines are essential for public health but inevitably cause harm to a small number of people. Since all of us benefit from a vaccinated population, the compensation program spreads the costs when things go wrong to everyone who received a vaccination, rather than leaving the injured and their families to bear the cost. It also avoids the time, expense and inefficiencies of litigation, and dispenses with the need to prove fault. The compensation fund thus ensures that vaccine manufacturers will remain in the market rather than being forced out by the prospect of huge legal judgments against them.
Guns, of course, are not essential for public health. But Congress has made painfully clear that it values the largely unfettered ownership of guns and their manufacture — despite the social costs of the violence that results when guns work as designed. For that reason, it makes sense to tax gun manufacturers directly. The result would be that those who derive a benefit from guns — for hunting, target practice, self-defense or simply for collecting — would shoulder some of the social costs of their choice as manufacturers pass along the cost of the tax to them.
Such a tax might also exert at least some economic pressure on manufacturers to market especially lethal guns less aggressively, or to implement safer gun technologies, like "smart guns" that could be used only by the registered owner. Right now, they have no such incentive — they're immune from most lawsuits, and guns are expressly exempt from regulation by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is supposed to protect the public from unreasonable risks from consumer products. (Thus, the commission can ban lawn darts or cork guns, but not real firearms.)
Since safer guns would mean fewer compensable injuries or deaths, the tax should be adjustable, rising when injuries and deaths increase, and falling when they decrease. The tax rate could also be adjusted to reflect the relative lethality of guns. Those guns that are most often used to kill or maim the largest number of people could be taxed at a higher rate, while guns used primarily for hunting or sport that are much less often involved in fatalities or injuries would be taxed at a lower rate.
Gun makers know that their products are lethal, and sometimes used illegally. They know that some of their dealers' sales practices contribute to guns' falling into criminal hands. They know that each year a significant number of innocent people will be killed or maimed by the use of guns. But quite often, the shooters themselves cannot be held fully or even partially accountable, financially, because they are unknown, destitute or dead.
A serious discussion will be required about the amount of compensation, and whether victims' family members would also be entitled to recover from the fund. These important conversations about eligibility and amounts are common to all compensation funds. Just as these questions have been and will be tackled for these other funds, they can be thoughtfully and carefully worked out for this one.
Some of the victims of recent mass shootings — including the massacres at Aurora, Colo., Newtown, Conn., and Virginia Tech, as well as those who survived the 9/11 attack — have recently banded together to ask Congress to enact a National Compassion Fund, to make sure that charitable donations get to their victims rather than being swallowed up in administrative costs.
That's a good idea, but it is not enough. Gun manufacturers should pony up. A national tax on the sale of guns is the way to do that.
Lucinda M. Finley
John G. Culhane
Lucinda M. Finley is a professor of trial and appellate advocacy, and vice provost for faculty affairs, at SUNY Buffalo Law School (email: finleylu@buffalo.edu). John G. Culhane is a professor of law at Widener University and director of its Health Law Institute (email: jgculhane@widener.edu).
Comment, received from Phil G (sent to authors), 6/24/13:
A remarkable article. Here's a line from it: "Guns, of course, are not essential for public health."
Peer-reviewed data suggest otherwise: guns are used from three to five times more often in the US to prevent crime, than to commit it. In most cases, the gun is not even fired, only produced. In those cases where the gun is fired, the persons interviewed typically report that they were in fear of their life, or that of others, and in all cases, had they not had the firearm, they would have been the victim of an assault that was intended to do bodily harm.
Perhaps you choose to define "public health" by ignoring maiming and death from criminal assault? A person damaged or killed by a fist, knife, bat, or gun is no more or less incapacitated or dead than if assaulted by a virus. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that guns most certainly /are/ essential for public health.
The millions of people murdered by criminal gangs, often by their own governments suppressing "dissent," would disagree with your characterization of "not essential for public health."
However, you do have a point, which I believe should be expanded upon.
Prior to adopting the tax on firearms, which would be the equivalent of a special tax on cars, knives, baseball bats, fireplace pokers, tire irons, beer bottles, and the amazing variety of other objects (lamps, figurines, pillows ...) that have been used to maim or kill, let's first apply your tax to the /real/ source of death and mayhem: the stupidly counterproductive laws which have been enacted by unqualified, knee-jerk politicians.
"Gun free" zones have proved to be gun free only for the victims. Politicians have made it impossible for teachers and other responsible adults in a school or other public setting to have the means to defend themselves and their charges. Such politicians are guilty of being accessories to murder. How about another article, advocating a tax on politicians who vote for "gun control" instead of criminal control laws? That tax could be used for a legal fund to prosecute them for their insanity. A companion law, removing their immunity would be another good step.
Oh, yes, and requiring politicians to live under the same laws they pass for the rest of us would also be a step in the right direction, starting with a law that makes it unlawful for a politician who voted for a "gun control" law, to have his/her own gun, or to use armed security.
Let's at least level the playing field ...
Comment, response received from E B Schwartz (sent to authors) 6/25/13:
I read with interest your piece in the Times. I was particularly fascinated by your comparison of guns and vaccines, and their consequences. I had never thought of it before! After thinking it through, though, I was struck by a couple of contradictions. I'm sill unable to reconcile them, so I thought I'd pose them to you.
First, I thought about the similarities. Like guns, vaccines save many, many times more lives than they ruin, so that makes sense. But the differences are striking. The drug companies, in a sense, are responsible for the injuries caused by their product; but the firearm manufacturers can be said to be responsible only for those very few accidents caused by defects in their products.
Further, except for those few defects, firearms are responsible for none of the deaths and injuries usually lumped together under the term "gun violence." A gun is incapable of violence: for violence, a human is required. Since that is the case, and the number of deaths and injuries involving firearms is smaller than those caused by baseball bats, feet and swimming pools, it would be much more effective to penalize those industries than firearm manufacturers.
I'm going to have to look into this further. At this point, though, I have to look at your conclusion as erroneous.
Sincerely,
E B Schwartz
Refer to the "Sandy Hook Index" for an archive collection of valuable material we have shown since the events at the Newtown Elementary School.
Check out Gun/Murder Statistics: A set of tabulated and graphical data showing relationships between gun numbers and murders - categorized by alphabetical countries listing. Useful research material.
Thought for the day -- "Isn't it strange that after a bombing, everyone blames the bomber ... but after a shooting, the problem is the Gun ! "
Yours in Freedom, The Liberty Crew at JPFO
Protecting you by creating solutions to destroy "gun control"
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"Waco a New Revelation".
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