There
have been at least 214 mass shootings in the United States so far
this year, the most recent being the killings during a July 4
gathering in Highland Park, Illinois. This year, we have also been
both riveted and horrified by the massacre of twenty-one people,
nineteen children, in Uvalde, Texas. A crazed racist killed 10 Black
people and wounded at least three others when he shot up a Tops
grocery store in Buffalo. In 2022, there have been more shootings
than days; the shootings have become commonplace.
The
Biden Administration and concerned legislators have done what they
can to restrict gun ownership, given our nation’s gun culture
and our combatively divided Senate. There is a new gun safety law,
and some survivors of mass shootings joined him at the White House to
celebrate the legislation. Yet, even after Congress passed the law,
we learned that the new law would not have prevented the Highland
Park shootings, as the 18-year-old man who did the shootings
purchased the assault weapon he used legally.
The
families of victims are tired of people offering thoughts and
prayers. They want action! The Safer Communities Act, passed on a
bipartisan basis last month, is a step in the right direction, but it
doesn’t go far enough. We need to use economic tools or inject
economics into the conversation about gun safety. Those of us who are
disgusted by mass shootings and the violence that plagues our inner
cities may have some weapons at our disposal to punish those who
participate in, and encourage, our gun culture.
Those
of us with stock portfolios must insist that our money managers avoid
stocks like Smith and Wesson (SWBI), which produced more than 1.5
million guns in 2020. If more people who say they hate gun violence
stopped investing in gun manufacturing companies, perhaps these
companies would rethink their manufacturing, marketing, and lobbying.
Gun ownership has been cleverly marketed, with companies using
buzzwords like safety, to encourage gun purchases.
Those
who are survivors of gun violence and their families should sue the
gun manufacturers who produce the deadly weapons that make massacres
possible. Earlier this year, Remington (RGM) agreed to pay the
families of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, where 20 children and six
educators were killed. It took a decade between the shootings and the
lawsuit settlement, so the families must be commended for their
persistence. The families of victims in Uvalde, Buffalo, and Highland
Park should consider pursuing similar lawsuits to punish those
companies that flood deadly weapons into the public.
Those
who facilitate the gun possession of young shooters should also be
sued. In the Highland Park case, the shooter’s father, Bobby
Crimo, said that he’d done nothing wrong in signing his son’s
gun permit application. From all indications, his son Bobby Crimo,
Jr. was troubled. He’d once threatened to kill his family,
sparking a police investigation. And yet his dad signs for a gun
permit. Sue him. If those who mindlessly sign gun permits understand
that there are financial consequences to their actions, they might
think again. Some will say that Crimo and some of the other shooters
were adults. I say if you facilitated the gun purchase, you have to
pay for it.
We
can also use our tax or surcharge system to restrict the distribution
of ammunition. The comedian Chris Rock had it right when he said in
2009, “You don’t need no gun control, you know what you
need? We need some bullet control. 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. Every time somebody got shot,
we’d say… He must have done something… he’s
got fifty thousand dollars worth of bullets in his behind…
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.’”
Rock
might have been joking, but I’m not. We use our tax system to
encourage or discourage specific behavior or to cover the costs of
such behavior. We use gas taxes to maintain roads. We impose
cigarette and alcohol taxes to discourage consumption. Why not tax
bullets (or mandate a surcharge) to discourage their use. If we want
to slow or stop gun violence, economic tools might well be the
answer.
