10 Wingmen: Should we tax guns and is government inherently evil

A proposed 10 percent tax on guns and ammo to help fund public/private nonviolence partnerships has shed light on a philosophical difference between Justin Katz and I. And we have a pretty interesting and (sometimes humorous) debate about the ammo tax too, thanks in no small part to our host/referee Bill Rappeleye.

But one quick clarification first, Katz says “guns are not designed to be used in crime.” True, but they are designed to cause violence. And that’s why the sale of them should help prevent violence.

News, Weather and Classifieds for Southern New England

But back to the interesting philosophical divide though: Katz says the intent of taxes is to infringe. I think he’s wrong about that. And my great fear is that he knows it, but he is going on TV and the internet and purposefully lying about this as a means to an end: to convince the public to shrink government. (More likely is that he’s just become so entrenched in his cause that he’s not able to see the other side of the coin clearly.)

At the end, he explains how he thinks government works: “This is the problem with government and progressive policies in general. You’re not saying hey this is a good thing, let’s feed people, let’s get people jobs, let’s protect people from guns. You’re saying this is my priority I’m going to take your money and give it people I know and trust to do things I want done. That’s not the way the country is supposed to work.”

Progressives certainly are saying the first part that. Our government is too but it can defend itself (if it wants to). As for the latter part of his statement, he’s just got his pronoun wrong. Here’s the corrected quote of how our government actually works:

“We are going to take our money and give it to people we known and trust to do the things we want done.”