In the wake of the Newtown shootings, we have lots of this:
The tragedy in Connecticut will convince communities across the country to cut other spending in favor of funding greater security measures, including adding armed guards at schools, said Peter Pochowski, the former executive director of the National Association of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officers.
Okay, then. In order to preserve the NRA's sweeping claims of Second Amendment gun rights, our schools (and public buildings, and shopping malls, and mass-transit systems, and places of worship, and and and) will almost certainly feel compelled to add new security on top of
the childhood-killing shit we're already doing:
Since the Columbine shootings in Colorado, schools across the nation have increased security. Burlington [Vermont] schools hold lockdown drills and evacuation drills on a regular basis, and keep only one door open to the public.
Well, we're apparently unable to do much about gun ownership laws because politicians are completely cowed by the gun lobby. But if we do face increased social costs because anyone who wants an assault rifle can have one, then how about this: We figure out how much security our schools need, and how much it costs (for the stuff we're already doing plus the new stuff), and create a security tax on gun sales?
The tax could be restricted to the most dangerous weapons -- anything with rapid-fire capability, cop-killer ammunition, etc. -- if you're concerned about placing a burden on someone who just wants a handgun or standard hunting weapons. But the tax should be high enough to hold our schools (and malls and buses and subways and churches) harmless for the security costs of being an armed society.
Fair enough? All we're doing is correcting a flaw in the market: assigning the true costs of gun ownership where they belong.