{"id":109034,"date":"2025-04-06T23:54:26","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T04:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=109034"},"modified":"2025-04-06T23:54:26","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T04:54:26","slug":"109034","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=109034","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

BLUF
\nThe Harvard Kennedy School might want to go back to basics. Taxing a Constitutional right doesn\u2019t add up. Locking up criminals equals less crimes and less victims.<\/em><\/p>\n

Harvard Scholar Argues to Tax Freedom for \u2018Public Health\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Leave it to the \u201cscholars\u201d at Harvard Kennedy School to come up with a scheme that combines the arrogance of the \u201cintellectual elite,\u201d increasing taxes, administering gun confiscation plans and \u2013 again \u2013 purposefully conflating \u201cpublic health\u201d policies for crime control for the latest pie-in-the-sky gun control plan.<\/p>\n

It would be an absurd April Fool\u2019s joke if the researchers at Harvard Kennedy School weren\u2019t serious. Just to be sure, a little digging shows that they\u00a0received a grant<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0for the study from Arnold Ventures, a\u00a0known antigun philanthropy organization<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0that funds gun control efforts across the country. What the idea shows is how out-of-touch the \u201cintellectual elite\u201d are when it comes Americans\u2019 \u2013 and the firearm industry\u2019s \u2013 commitment is to ensuring free exercise of Second Amendment freedoms. These are foundational to the unique American identity \u2013 that the rights are granted to Americans by their Creator and guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, specifically in this case by the Bill of Rights. That\u2019s not the case with two ivy-bound researchers. When it comes to the right to keep and bear arms \u2013 they\u2019ve got a plan.<\/p>\n

Trust me. It\u2019s not better.<\/p>\n

Luis Armona, an economic and assistant professor of policy at Harvard Kennedy School, and Adam Rosenberg, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University, believe they\u2019ve come up with a way to reduce the criminal misuse of firearms \u2013 specifically murder. They just need to\u00a0tax the snot out of them<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Flawed Premises<\/h4>\n

Before anyone gets apoplectic, they are quick to reassure doubters they know what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in the United States, so I\u2019m intimately familiar with gun culture and the way guns can be an important part of the identity of those who own them but also have important consequences for public health,\u201d\u00a0Armona explained<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0to Robert O\u2019Neill of Harvard Kennedy School.<\/p>\n

So Armona understands \u201cgun culture\u201d because he grew up in America. That\u2019s the start of a bad punchline for a second-rate joke, but in the interest of honest debate, we\u2019re listening\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cBut for nearly 30 years, the federal government did not fund research on firearms, and so our understanding of how these markets work is very undeveloped,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Hold on. That\u2019s not even close to true. That\u2019s a gun control talking point to attack the\u00a0Dickey Amendment<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0that states no funds made available for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control.\u201d<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean the CDC stopped studying guns. NSSF\u00a0pointed that out\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>previously, and President Donald Trump even signed legislation in his first administration that said the CDC has authority to conduct research into the causes of \u201cgun violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do You Even Research, Bro?<\/h4>\n

Armona and Rosenberg have a plan, though. They will dig into the data to understand the pattern of gun sales in the United States, starting with publicly-available gun purchase data in Massachusetts. That presents the second problem. Massachusetts\u2019 data might be flawed, though, since Massachusetts\u00a0banned the sale<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>of the most-popular selling centerfire rifle in America \u2013 the Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR). There are over\u00a030 million of these rifles in circulation<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in America, but the Massachusetts data will be lacking since it\u2019s not reflective of the buying patterns of other states that don\u2019t infringe on Second Amendment rights.<\/p>\n

This is frustrating so far, but there\u2019s more to explore. Armona and Rosenberg assume that most firearm owners are likely to be male, conservative, rural and less racially diverse. For a dataset, that might be statistically true, but it also ignores the rapidly-changing reality. Today\u2019s gun buyer is increasingly more representative of minorities, women and those who live in urban areas. The media has recognized this.\u00a0The New York Times<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0wrote about it. So did\u00a0The Boston Globe<\/a><\/strong>. And so did\u00a0The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/strong>, not just recently but\u00a0also last year<\/a><\/strong>. And the\u00a0Christian Science Monitor<\/a><\/strong>. And\u00a0Huffington Post<\/a><\/strong>. And\u00a0CNN<\/a><\/strong>. And\u00a0ABC News<\/a><\/strong>. And\u00a0GV Wire<\/a><\/strong>. There are also NSSF\u2019s research, that showed since 2020, there have been\u00a026.2 million new first-time gun<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0buyers who are increasingly representative of urban dwellers, women and minorities. That\u2019s more than the population of Florida.<\/p>\n

Tax, Tax, Tax<\/h4>\n

Here\u2019s where it gets\u2026 well, interesting. Armona and Rosenberg believe they could get buy in from NSSF on their gun-tax-for-public-health scheme. They note the Pittman-Robertson excise tax \u2013 that\u2019s the 10 and 11 percent tax paid by firearm and ammunition manufacturers that funds wildlife conservation across America as a starting point. That\u2019s not for \u201cpublic health,\u201d by the way. They also note California and Colorado\u2019s new excise tax to fund their gun control efforts in those state \u2013 which is being\u00a0challenged in court<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Armona and Rosenberg argue that taken nationwide, a tax increase on guns would generate $400 million from gun purchasers and another $570 million from manufactures and reduce murders by 60 victims. They admit, though, this idea is likely \u201cinfeasible.\u201d<\/p>\n

To get everyone on board, the two scholars propose to lower taxes on long guns and increase them on handguns, since handguns are criminally-misused by a much wider margin.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the Thing About Criminals<\/h4>\n

Here\u2019s where the whole house-of-cards falls apart. Criminals, typically, don\u2019t legally buy guns. That means they wouldn\u2019t pay the tax. The Department of Justice (DOJ) Bureau of Justice Statistics own\u00a0reports show<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0that 90 percent of criminals convicted of crimes involving a firearm admit they obtained those firearms through illicit means. In other words, those criminals stole those firearms or bought them on the black market.<\/p>\n

The other, really, really big problem is that crime isn\u2019t a public health crisis, as much as gun control advocates want to profess it is.\u00a0Crime is a law enforcement issue<\/a><\/strong>. There is no prescription that prevents people who have no respect for life or law to make them not want to harm their victims. There\u2019s no pill to cure that ill-minded intent.<\/p>\n

There is a proven method, though. Lock up the criminals. Putting a criminal behind bars has a pretty good effect on preventing them from committing further crimes when they\u2019re serving their sentence. Enforcing criminal law against those who commit crimes stands a greater chance of gaining public and political support than would the idea that taxing guns and ammunition for those who obey the law would. Making those who legally buy a gun to protect themselves from criminals pay extra to the government doesn\u2019t make a criminal not want to harm their victims. It only punishes the innocent and taxes a Constitutionally-protected right.<\/p>\n

The Harvard Kennedy School might want to go back to basics. Taxing a Constitutional right doesn\u2019t add up. Locking up criminals equals less crimes and less victims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BLUF The Harvard Kennedy School might want to go back to basics. Taxing a Constitutional right doesn\u2019t add up. Locking up criminals equals less crimes and less victims. Harvard Scholar Argues to Tax Freedom for \u2018Public Health\u2019 Leave it to the \u201cscholars\u201d at Harvard Kennedy School to come up with a scheme that combines the … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crap-for-brains","category-education-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109034"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109035,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109034\/revisions\/109035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=109034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=109034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}