[Vision2020] How Many More . . .

[Joe Campbell]

This is a great essay, Ken! Joe

On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 9:17 PM, Kenneth Marcy <kmmos1 at frontier.com> wrote:
> 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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