Thursday, January 15, 2015

You Want Gun Owners To Pay For WHAT?

Well that didn't take long. A Missouri state legislator named Brandon Ellington (a Democrat, naturally) has found a way to combine his hatred of gun owners and his contempt for the police with bills that mandate that all police officers wear body cameras and that every gun or ammunition purchaser pay for those cameras via a 1% tax on these items.

Missouri lawmaker wants police body cameras paid for by tax on guns, ammo

What a shock, eh?

Now while I like police car dash cams, I'm not a fan of body cams in principle, because I still think that police officers can, by and large, be trusted to tell the truth, and saddling each and every one of them with even more gear don't really address the problem of ferretting out and removing the relative few that aren't trustworthy. However, even if cameras are the way to go, (because we can never spend too much money making sure that violent criminals and crackheads don't get roughed up or "disrespected",) how does anyone, even a Democrat, justify passing the bill on to every law-abiding gun owner and target shooter in the state?

My suggestion to the representative and the Dems in general is that if you want to tax people to pay for police cameras, how about taxing the people that cause most police interactions?

--Put a tax on anyone who is arrested. Heck, what's one more court fine imposed? And it's pretty obvious that these people are "users" of our criminal justice system, and that should work for fans of a "user pays" form of government financing.

--Put a tax on liquor stores in urban neighborhoods. Can we not argue that much of the street crime occurs in or around these places or when their products are consumed to excess?

--Hell, why not put a tax on every store in low-income, high-crime neighborhoods, because that seems to be where 99% of the people who can't get along with the police live. Draconian and overly-broad? Perhaps. But you have to admit that it still makes more sense than taxing some rural farmer, suburban target shooter or a retiree living in a mountain cabin, none of whom are anywhere near as likely to encounter a police officer as as "the usual suspects", many of whom spend much of their lives under the supervision of some court or correctional institution due to their repeated "failure to do right".

Let's just call this what it is: an attempt by those who oppose freedom and law and order by the political party that is beholden to the criminal class and willing to hamstring our police and, in the process, hose lawful gun owners, most of whom typically vote for someone else anyway.

8 comments:

  1. Time for the sequel to the French Revolution. This time in America.

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    Replies
    1. I'm down for that. Hopefully we can get around to it while I'm still somewhat young.

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  2. Sooooo.... We're guilty even if innocent... sigh

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  3. Anonymous12:57 PM

    I suggest we make them use any 'civil asset forfeiture' money they collect.

    Let's take away the incentive for them to collect money and at the same time increase the transparency of interactions. If a department outfits everyone with cameras and still has money; then it has to be sent to the state for disbursement to other agencies.

    We can keep them upgrading cameras, storage space, etc for a long while.

    If they still have too much money; then let's higher a panel of people to watch the videos. Yep, it will be boring job but they can review every interaction -- we decrease unemployment and increase accountability at the same time.

    Bob S.

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  4. Anonymous1:01 PM

    I suggest we re-direct the use of any 'civil asset forfeiture' money.
    Let's reduce the incentive for the cops to confiscate money so they can get new toys to play with and keep an eye on them at the same time.

    We can pass a law stating the only use for that money is the acquisition, upkeep of the cameras, storage review etc of body cameras and files.

    If any agency collects more money then needed to outfit them with body cameras then they have to send the extra to the state for disbursement to other agencies.
    We can put in a provision to require continual update on capability of the cameras, increase storage capacity (20 year retention), etc.

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  5. Nah, I like asset forfeiture. It kicks drug dealers and other criminals squarely in the sack and most of the claims of abuse come from disgruntled drug dealers and their stooges and I have a hard time finding them credible, especially when the media only runs their side of the story.

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  6. In DC, when they wanted to build the new baseball stadium, and steal a team from Canada, they had a "special taxation zone" which amounted to pretty much every business they could find. I failed to see any possible benefit to my shop by building a baseball stadium, but had to fork over anyway. I think the idea as applied here has merit...And the precedents have been set.

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  7. Anonymous11:14 PM

    +1 Harry Flashman

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