A ‘Social Harms’ Tax Can End The U.S. Gun Crisis, Constitutionally

Don Griswold (Bloomberg Tax), A ‘Social Harms’ Tax Can End the US Gun Crisis, Constitutionally:

Gun violence is the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in America. Over 100 people are killed with guns each day here; twice that many are shot and wounded. We experience a mass shooting almost twice daily. No need to list illustrations here; our souls are seared by the names, the places, the images.

In the absence of adequate regulatory action, the tragedy of gun violence here extends from day to deadly day. We have not yet learned how to escape the devastating social harms associated with the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

But I did not lose hope four months ago when the US Supreme Court decision in NYS Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v Bruen made it even harder to regulate our way to American safety, or earlier this month, when a lower court ruled New York can’t even ban guns on the subway or in ever-crowded Times Square.

My hope did not waver because there is a path out of this American nightmare: Even after Bruen, our federal and state governments remain constitutionally free to impose broad-based taxes on activities that cause significant social harms but that cannot (for whatever reason) be adequately regulated. ...

The uniquely American epidemic of gun violence is not insoluble, despite the Supreme Court’s concerted efforts to make it so.

Broad-based social harms taxation can redistribute Second Amendment externalities to those who create them. Enact such a tax, and the market will take care of the rest—individual liberty and public safety will gradually come to coexist in America, and our nation’s self-inflicted wound will heal.