Scucca

The empirical evidence exists to suggests that they are a significant variable.

Given the crime effects, you could argue that gun ownership leads to a substantial externality effect. Banning guns then is not supported. Instead, a high license fee is required

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Mach

Same weak argument. Millions of guns and not all being used for crimes means not all guns are used to commit crimes. Thats is all.

Think of a drug like those pain medications that caused heart attacks in let's say 5% of users. So, 95% of the people using it don't die of heart attacks, THEREFORE, the drug is not causing the heart attacks? Please do things for the right reasons, not for the wrong ones. If you think there is evil in the world, there is, and it lies with those who distort or don't understand reality.

And in my OP, I intended to write "There are some good reasons for gun ownership", but these are not them. There are also good reasons for gun control, so it reads fine. The issue here is the arguments in the OP, and yours, are not good arguments. It's like you're saying "yeah, well do something about it!". Seems a bit petty.

-Mach

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Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is an illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and I am content.- Conan

Goobieman

How does that follow?
How will high license fees affect criminals, who get their guns illegally?

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Scucca

Its about appreciating that there are negative externalities from gun ownership (i.e. As referenced earlier, see Cook and Ludwig (2006, The social costs of gun ownership, Journal of Public Economics, Vol 90, pp 379-391). They are able to conclude that "an increase in gun prevalence causes an intensification of criminal violence—a shift toward greater lethality, and hence greater harm to the community". The gun owner does not face the true costs of their ownership and therefore a license fee is needed to correct for the price failure

Goobieman

-How am I, a law-abiding gun owner, in any way responsible for the "true costs" of gun ownership when the vast majority of these costs have nothing to do with me and those like me?
-What other rights have a "true cost" that should also suffer a hefty licensing fee?
And, again:
-How will high license fees affect criminals, who get their guns illegally, and are most responsible for the "true costs" you mention?

Scucca

You, as an individual, are only responsible for paying the price of the gun. It just happens that the price does not reflect the overall costs

The authors present evidence to show that homicide is increased by the transfer of guns from the legal to the illegal user. The fee, by increasing the price of ownership, reduces demand and therefore this source of deaths

Goobieman

So... if I, a law-abiding gun owner, am not responsible for the "true costs" of gun owership, as you say, why then should I be made to pay for those "true costs"?

And, again:
-What other rights have a "true cost" that should also suffer a hefty licensing fee?

This doesnt address my question.
Criminals do not license their guns, nor can they be forced to.
How will the high license fees affect criminals, who get their guns illegally?

Scucca

You're asking for me to repeat myself. Its all about externalities. You only have 1 hardcore method to suitably attack my comment: offer an alternative empirical investigation that rejects the crime effects.

Taxes (or subsidies) should be used in any product with substantial externalities. The classic examples are fuel (tax) and education (subsidies)

There is no notion that the license will eliminate gun crime. We're just referring to one source: the "used" gun market. Higher price, via the law of demand, will cut the numbers of legal guns bought and that will have the desired effect on the "used" gun market. Homicides are reduced.

Goobieman

No, I'm asking you to explain why somene who has nothing to do with a "cost" is expected to pay said cost.
Unless you can show my specific responsibility for that cost, there's no way you can argue that I should have to pay the cost.

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So, given that libel and slander have substantial externalities, you would agree that people should have to pay a hefy licensing fee to exercise their right to free speech.

I didnt ask you about the elimination of gun crime, I asked you how it would affect criminals, the people that create the 'cost'.

Scucca

I've already said. Our behaviour involves private and social benefits and costs. With significant social costs, individualism lead to overconsumption. To ignore those costs is to reduce economic welfare. It just happens that reduction in this case is characterised by a higher homicide rate.

A nonsensical comparison. We're talking about consumption and the failure of the price mechanism.

There will be fewer criminals, other things remaining equal, killing folk.