Let’s Talk About Taxes, What’s Fair?

There is no such thing as a "fair" tax. For any system of taxation you can contrive, I (or another) can show how it's "unfair" to some person or group. Therefore, I never discuss taxes in the context of fair/unfair (e.g. "fair-share"). There simply is no such thing, so it's a futile discussion.

The only useful context for discussion taxation is workability. Specifically, a workable taxation system is one that provides sufficient revenue to provide the agreed upon services, while minimizing the impact/burden on each individual.

By impact/burden, I mean it the effect on the ability of the individual to live with the "socially agreed upon" minimal necessities of life IN THAT SOCIETY, AND minimizing the impact/limit on his ability to better his situation via education, work, and/or investment.

Thus, if a person makes at or less than the minimum required for necessities in a society, ANY taxes on him are a very heavy burden, even "undue" burden. For someone who makes just a small amount more than minimum, taxes are a heavy burden as they limit his ability to better his circumstances, therefore, they should be as light as feasible, but he can reasonably be expected to pay some taxes. The greater the difference between a person's income, and the minimum necessary in that society, the lesser the impact taxes will have on his ability to improve his circumstances.

This is the fundamental principle for which progressive taxation is the system with the lowest impact/burden. Now, some will try to claim it's unfair to those who earn the most, but as Ii said, "fair" isn't a useful context for discussing taxation. However, because it's very difficult for human beings to remove "fair/unfair" from their context for consideration, I will address a couple items in the context of what is fair/unfair:

1. It should never be considered "fair", or "just" to tax more than 50% of what a person earns (after deducting the minimum required to live in that society). That is, taking more than half of a person's "discretionary" or "disposable" income as taxation should be avoided unless it's simply not possible to operate an agreed upon govt using less (e.g. it might be necessary to have a higher tax during times of war or national emergency, and then must be for as short a time as practical).
2. To reduce a person's ability to afford luxuries is less of a burden than reducing his ability to improve his circumstance. Is it not more of a burden to take 10% from a person who has $1000 above the "minimum necessary", than taking 20% from a person with 100,000 above the minimum?
3. Those who earn more, do so, not solely of their own labor, but in part by the freedoms afforded by the society in which they earned it, thus those who "earn" the most, have also benefited the most from the society. Is it not appropriate that those who benefit more, pay a greater share to continue the society that enables them to earn those amounts?

It's Time to Talk About Guns.

It's time to have a frank discussion about guns and the homicide rate in the USA. First some disclaimers:

1. I don't know all the answers, I've just analyzed the statistics enough to point out the flaws with both the "pro-gun", NRA, don't regulate them, arm more people groups as well as the "ban guns", "gun control" groups. I will address both through one or more articles, so expect to have your beliefs challenged no matter where you stand on the issue.
2. I will propose some possible solutions or paths that might lead to solutions. You may or may not agree with all of them, and that's ok. Please read them anyway, perhaps they will alter your view, or perhaps they'll help you see a path/solution others haven't seen.
3. I'm going to point out trends in the US and other countries that may counter what you've heard/read. I will provide links to the source data so you can see that I'm not distorting the info.
4. Some of what I post might really upset you. Chances are that it's not what I say or how I say it that upsets you, but the fact that it disagrees with some belief or agenda you may have (and may not even be aware of). That too is ok. Push on, be willing to challenge everything you think you know about the topic.
5. I'm not going to try to convince you that guns are good or bad, that's a personal opinion, you're welcome to keep your opinions about guns. I'm dealing in facts and practical solutions to lower the US homicide rate, and "gun violence"
6. I'm a lifelong gun owner. I'm not interested in convincing you to own guns or not. You can make your own choice.
7. I've never hunted and have no desire to do so. I have never pointed a gun at any living creature, and I hope I never find myself in a situation where I find that necessary. I shoot targets, including skeet (clay pigeons).
8. If you choose to own a gun, I'm going to demand that you be responsible. If you can't or won't be, you should not be allowed to own or possess a gun.
9. I believe guns can be a part of a civilized society, and that the laws need to take every reasonable effort to keep guns away from those who are unlikely to act responsibly.
10. There are some "arms" that are weapons of war and should not be possessed by civilians. This is long established Constitutional law, we don't allow civilians to own nuclear weapons, tanks, artillery, bombs, fully-automatic guns, etc. We allow some exceptions via licensing or qualified individuals. This is not an infringement of the 2nd Amendment. This is established law, don't even try to argue against it, deal with reality. I will not indulge such arguments, so don't waste your time or mine trying to make one.
11. Personal attacks and uncivil comments will not be tolerated. If you make them, I'll remove them and/or ban you. Keep it civil.

Homicides are homicides:

Many sources talk about "gun homicides" as is they are somehow separate from other homicides. They aren't. Dead is dead, no matter how they were killed. People don't kill because they have a gun. People become homicidal, then they find a method of carrying out their intent. Yes, some methods have a higher lethality rate, some kill more people in less time, but there are several methods that can be just as lethal and fast as a gun. But notice it's not the gun that makes people homicidal, the gun is just a convenient and (in the US today) very accessible tool.

Suicides are not homicides:

Suicides are a tragedy, I'm not going to diminish the seriousness or loss any suicide represents. But, they are a symptom of many problems in our society, depression, hopelessness, lack of access to healthcare, poverty, etc. I don't even pretend to understand it. But I do know that suicides aren't materially lower in countries with very low access to guns, because they have nothing to do with guns. I'm not going to address suicides other than to say, they are a separate issue, require a separate set of solutions. If you try to conflate "gun suicides" into the discussion, I will remove your comments. No exceptions. Don't even ask why it's not allowed because I just explained why.

Australia and the UK:

Australia’s gun ban/buyback did not stop the problem. Every time there is s mass shooting in the US, the same set of old articles claiming it ended mass shootings and drastically lowered their homicide rate reappear. The problem is that it’s not exactly true. Note: this does not mean that sane, sensible restrictions on access guns aren’t a part of the answer, I think they are a part of the answer, but they clearly aren’t the whole answer to addressing the homicide rate.

Australian Gun Ban/Buy-back
1. Homicides actually increased for 2 years after they completed the gun buyback. Then they fell for about 10 years and have been fairly stable since.
2. The US experienced the same percentage decrease in homicides over those same years, despite the abundance of guns here and the expiration of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban in 2004.
3. Australia didn’t even see a drop in mass homicides. There were 77 people killed in mass homicides in 13 incidents in the 21 years prior to the Port Arthur Massacre. All were shootings. There have been at least 79 killed in 13 incidents in the 21 years since, about half of them by arson, 8 by stabbing, 8 using guns, others by various other means.

Massacres in Australia Crime in the US Australian Institute of Criminology

Regarding the UK handgun ban, I'm not getting into the specifics, but if you research it, you'll find the results are very similar to Australia. I'll leave that research to the reader, but I've looked into it extensively, and it's not materially different. The one thing I will address is that the UK did get their homicide rate under control...by hiring tens of thousands of additional police officers. That's what finally worked, not the handgun ban. The homicide rate actually increased about 60% over the 12 years following the handgun ban. Look it up.

Chicago and other US cities:

Chicago does not have the highest homicide rate in the US. In fact, it's not in the top 5, and it's generally not in the top 10, having only been in the top 10 two of the past 20 years. For the last 5 years, St Louis has been #1. St Louis has almost no gun laws. As of this writing, the top 5 are St Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, and Newark (NJ). St Louis and New Orleans have very lax gun laws, Detroit has moderate laws, Chicago and Newark have strict laws. Feel free to browse the list sorted by homicide rate, that pattern continues throughout the list, with a mixture of cities having lax laws right next to cities with strict laws. There is a slight tendency for cities with the lowest homicide rates to be cities with strict gun laws, but it's not strong enough to cite as compelling evidence for strong gun laws "working".

List of US cities by crime rate

Thoughts and Prayers and doing nothing:

Thoughts and prayers won't solve this, no God works that way. If God protected the innocent, we wouldn't need to have arguments or laws about abortion, or murder, or armed guards at our schools, God would just protect them. Notice it doesn't work that way. Prayers are for guidance, then you take action. Without action, nothing happens. Send your thoughts, make your prayers, then ACT.

A Proposal:

A rational proposal, draft legislation, written by a friend of mine that is the first proposal I’ve seen that could effectively address the “military type guns” in the US. It’s not an outright ban, but it would place them under strict regulations.

It’s well written, easy to understand, specific and measurable so anyone can objectively determine if any gun falls under it or not, and addresses the functionality, not the appearance or other factors that can easily be worked around. And, it doesn’t infringe anyone’s 2nd Amendment rights. It also applies to all those already in circulation and gives time for the owners to comply with the new regs.

It may need some tweaking, but it’s a very solid starting place. I've proposed some specific tweaks that clarify and simplify it by addressing the "mass lethality" of a given gun using restrictions that are based solely on the maximum cartridge energy combined with semi-automatic operation and a "magazine" capacity exceeding 9 rounds. I'll post those details as an update later.

PeopleB4Guns.org

Beware False Claims and Propaganda:

Beware the claims about the numbers of school shootings and mass shootings. There are people out there flat out lying to further their agendas. This is true for some on the pro-gun/no restrictions groups as well as the anti-gun/"ban them all" groups. Here’s one example.

1. More armed people isn’t the answer. The same data that shows “gun control” doesn’t solve the problem also show that more guns doesn’t solve it. Two sides of the same coin.

2. Sane, sensible gun restrictions, possibly including a ban of guns such as the AR-15, are a prudent step to take, but don’t be deluded into thinking they will make a big difference. They will help, but it’s likely to make only a small difference.

3. Blaming or banning inanimate objects, while sometimes prudent and somewhat helpful, does not, and never will solve problems that are caused by human behavior. Sure, we can ban the most dangerous objects, and save a few lives, but the big results only come from addressing the behavior.

4. What we need to do (other than doing the above) is stop arguing about guns and start looking at what causes the anger, hopelessness, disconnection and/or other feelings that has people do such things with such frequency in our society. It’s not strictly a “mental health” issue, it’s cultural and socioeconomic.

An editorial that covers many of the common claims.
A sane article on the issues, based on evidence, not ideology.