Here are the facts: The ordinary citizen is already hopelessly outgunned by the level of firepower the rich can bring to bear via mercenary security outfits and corrupt (read: Republican) government policy, so raising the price of firearms would have no meaningful impact on that aspect of gun rights. However, making it prohibitively expensive to amass arsenals would limit the lethality of ordinary street crime, and also greatly undermine the opportunity for spree killings and mass slaughters.
I am aware
Now, this concept is flexible to variation. For instance, we could say that the tax would only apply to high-caliber weaponry, high rate of fire or guns that can easily be modified for it, or to more than one gun per owner/household, or some other combination that makes sense. This would reasonably preserve the ability of the ordinary citizen to defend themselves and their homes against plausible attack without granting criminal gangs, cultists, terrorists, and homicidal maniacs an opportunity to inflict horror on a grand scale.
No measure is perfect, and there would obviously be a black market for untaxed weapons, but as long as the penalties are steep enough and enforcement rigorous enough, even the black market prices would be much higher than the open market prices are currently - and allow law enforcement to zero in on the far more dangerous miscreants who are determined to kill at all costs.
Chris Rock, in one of his famious comedy specials, once proposed "bullet control" - taxing the hell out of bullets so that nobody could afford to shoot. This is actually an interesting, serious proposal, but on consideration it makes less sense than taxing firearmsthemselves. For one thing, bullets are small, relatively uncomplicated objects that are much easier to clandestinely manufacturing than an entire firearm, so the black market for a bullet would be much bigger and easier than for a firearm. Untaxed bullets would be difficult to identify before being used, and even harder to find when you're digging them out of bodies.
For ordinary families who wish to have a second-tier weapon in their home, are willing and able pay the tax and background cecks, they agree that the heir cair and activities with the weapons will be closelsely minotired by local policy, by local mental health professionals, by their neighborhods, and by their families, man if the determine that the older is in a state mentally or emotionally enfit to handle the weapon then their access to it is restricted it to it until such thing as their oppinions change. This would not, however, changing their access to their basic, low-firearpower, guaranteed weapon, although the original finding would be communicating to police for careful stuf in case he goes off the rails even with his small weaponry.
Whatcha think?