[Vision2020] How Many More . . .

[Kenneth Marcy]

On 8/18/2012 2:02 PM, Gary Crabtree wrote:
> Hey it's you and hanson that are suggesting that the compilation of 
> lists would be a swell idea, not I. I assure you I am quite relaxed.
> Since you bring up "administrative burden," what kind of burden is it 
> likely to be to locate, record, and keep track of the 
> approximately 270 million privately held firearms currently 
> circulating in the United States, many of which are going to be held 
> by otherwise law abiding private citizens who are likely to be more 
> than a little underwhelmed with your firearms and the IRS scheme?

Ballpark, order-of-magnitude, estimates are that the IRS will receive 
about a quarter billion tax return filings in 2012. Not quite half will 
be electronic filings by practitioners and individuals, with the 
remainder filed on paper forms and attachments. Given that some people 
will have zero weapons to report, and some will have a few, and a few 
will have many, this order of magnitude task is well within the size of 
ordinary IRS operations. These operations will rely on data reported by 
taxpayers, and one supposes will enjoy rates of accuracy and 
completeness not dissimilar to other self-reported information types.

> The next question of course would be should this highly dubious 
> exercise in overreach be achieved, what next?

 From the point of view of the vast majority of taxpayers, the vast 
majority of the time, nothing. Concerning one relatively small 
percentage of filers, some legitimate law enforcement entity might query 
an IRS database and discover that a weapon recovered from a crime scene, 
or from a person of interest, has ownership information that either does 
or does not match with the identity of the person from whom the weapon 
was recovered. The law enforcement personnel may then proceed with their 
operations as is appropriate from the query results.

Concerning another, probably considerably smaller percentage of filers, 
an IRS computer program, or an IRS agent, examining a return with a 
large loss item related to the sale of several weapons or a weapons 
collection might flag that return for further examination by way of an 
audit.

> How will it prevent the tragedies we have recently witnessed?

First, it should be mentioned that there are just over approximately 29 
thousand weapons-related deaths per year. Of those, about one and a half 
thousand deaths are just accidents, i.e., careless misuse of weapons. 
About 16 thousand deaths are considered suicides by firearm usage, and 
the remaining approximately 12 thousand deaths are considered murders 
via weapons use.

This question cannot be answered prospectively except with a 
non-quantitative statement of expectation. My expectation is that none 
of the numbers in the preceding paragraph would be reduced to zero. 
There will still be accidents, there will still be suicides, and there 
will still be murders even if every gun were completely and correctly 
recorded in a database. However, it is also my expectation that 
individuals' awareness of the fact that the weapons are registered will 
cause some percentage of them to be more aware of, more conscious of, 
and more careful with the safe operation, storage, and restriction of 
those weapons from inappropriate individuals, especially children. The 
fact of registration may make a few individuals more aware that, because 
some other people are devoting some small degree of their awareness to 
that personally-owned firearm, they may be marginally more inclined to 
seek less self-destructive solutions for problems for which a weapon 
might appear a quick, easy, way out. Admittedly, this is just blue-sky 
speculation. But it is true that people will act less impulsively and 
more responsibly if they think, consciously or otherwise, that they are 
being watched. To the extent that gun registration promotes more 
self-conscious and responsible gun ownership behaviors, lives will be 
saved and society will benefit.

> As far as the media has been able to ascertain the firearms used were 
> purchased legally, at least from the sellers perspective.

Are you actually suggesting that if some local reporter flounces a steno 
pad past the front window of a local gun shop, and no whistle-blowing 
genie appears from a teapot sitting on the sidewalk by the door, that 
all is well in the world of firearms sold in the vicinity? Concerning 
the idea that many reporters work together with establishment figures to 
assure most readers that everything is fine, there's nothing to see 
here, move along, move along, that's just the Herman-Chomsky 
_Manufacturing Consent_ idea expressed with respect to members of the 
public disadvantaged from lack of insider access to information.

> (Lying on the 4473 form regarding ones mental health is quite beyond 
> their control) What good would it do for an IRS agent to have been 
> aware of the transaction? Do you believe that a well timed audit would 
> have saved the day?

IRS agents are primarily concerned with tax liability recognition and 
recovery, not suicide prevention, murder investigation, or 
weapons-safety training and encouragement.

> Your plan would create a great deal more bureaucracy, waste 
> significant amounts of taxpayer dollars, turn many law abiding gun 
> owners into criminals at the stroke of a pen and do next to nothing to 
> solve the perceived problem.

To the extent that higher degrees of fairness in tax law administration, 
justice in criminal law administration, and mental health in suicide 
prevention efforts are achieved, the incremental, marginal costs of a 
small number of additional IRS forms, modest amounts of computer 
programming, and proportional amounts of tax audit and law enforcement 
research effort are likely to be considered worthwhile expenditures 
toward significant, measurable results.

> Liberal do something (especially something ineffective) disease run amok.

Well, goodness gracious, sakes alive, it's yet another dollop of whining 
conservative resistance to efforts to accomplish a safer, fairer, and 
more just community within which everyone may share some personal pride 
and private enjoyment.


Ken
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