It is undeniable that we have to do more to reduce the devastating impact gun violence is having on our community. While the courts have consistently ruled against significant gun control legislation, there is still a way to decrease crime: substantially increase the cost of its’ commission.
Increasing the cost of guns won’t work because many criminals don’t purchase new guns and they can be borrowed or even rented in some areas. Therefore, as Mayor, Otis will move to impose a $1 per bullet tax (or about $50 per pack). That will increase substantially the financial cost of committing a crime and, unlike guns, bullets cannot be shared after their initial use. This will also dramatically cut back on the random firings that too often happen around holidays and celebrations.
Otis Rolley
Candidate for Mayor of Baltimore
July 19, 2011
THE ROLLEY PLAN TO MAKE EVERY NEIGHBORHOOD IN BALTIMORE SAFER
[It would appear that Rolley is arithmetically and logically impaired. There would be constitutional challenges to this which almost for certain he would lose because he openly admits, “This is not a revenue enhancement tool”.
But ignoring the constitutional issue with high taxes you would get smuggling with this proposal. Just think about it a bit. What is the tax on recreational drugs in this country or the tax on bullets and guns in the U.K.? Oh yeah! It’s a few years in prison and those items are still readily available. And with the tax on ammunition purchased inside the city limits all he will accomplish is to create a virtual ban on the legal sale of ammunition within the city. This will create a new black market. In other words a Mayor Rolley would increase crime instead of decrease it.
Now the arithmetic part. I don’t have the numbers for just Baltimore but I do have them for the U.S. as a whole. Each year private citizens purchase, and presumably consume, something on the order of 9 billions rounds of ammunition. There are approximately 70,000 injuries or deaths each year due to criminal use of firearms. Suppose that on the average, each of these injuries and deaths were the result of two shots fired. This would mean that his proposed tax would cost people exercising their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms nearly $9,000,000,000 while costing the criminals only about $140,000. Or a ratio of about 64,000 to 1. This is not a “tax” on criminal use of firearms. It is a “tool” for infringing on people exercising a guaranteed right.
Furthermore looking at it from the standpoint of per criminal use his proposal would increase the cost of the crime, assuming the criminals actually purchased the ammo instead of stealing it or smuggling it in from outside the city, by about $2.00 per crime. When the “cost” of the crime is already many months or years in jail how can anyone think that increasing the cost another $2.00 is going to make a difference?
This guy has crap for brains. No wonder he is running for mayor. He isn’t qualified for a real job.—Joe]
Apparently he has Chris Rock as a political advisor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuX-nFmL0II
So would owning a reloading press make you a tax evader?
“This is not a “tax” on criminal use of firearms. It is a “tool” for infringing on people exercising a guaranteed right.”
Again, at the risk of sounding like a stuttering parrot: 18 USC 241. As soon as he discusses this idea with another person with the intent to implement it, there is CONSPIRACY.
The tools to stop these tyrants exist, but they are in the hands of their fellow tyrants.
Par for the course in Baltimore. I had the pleasure of living in Baltimore during the height of the crack epidemic, and about one murder per day was the norm for several years as Jamaican dealers took over from the locals. Bullets are the least of that city’s problems.
To make the place safer, I’d start by eliminating most of city government, which apparently exists to stifle any business efforts, investment plans, or entrepreneurial spirit in the citizens. Except for dealing drugs, of course, which flourishes as long as it remains completely free of city regulation.
Baltimore has the government it deserves, which is Chicago cronyism and corruption on a smaller scale.
Yet another brilliant victim-disarmament plan. Phssthpok is exactly right, we need to start prosecuting those who violate our civil rights.
“I acquired a black-market weapon.(Sales are all registered, but for a small premium of 50%, one may buy a new pistol not far from the spaceport. They come in by the shipload, as they do anywhere the local rulers utter magic incantations to keep them out. Never let your religious beliefs get in the way of the law of supply and demand.”
From The Weapon
Yet the pro-criminals will quickly trot out how this is “not” an undue burden to firearm owners, like they do for each and everyone of their restrictions. It’s the least we can do, you know.. to stop criminals from having access.
Umm, wouldn’t they just purchase the rounds with the money they’ve already stolen, if they didn’t bother to just steal the ammo? How does this bother criminals?
There’s always the old legally-purchase-them-somewhere-else-then-bring-them-home trick.
“There’s always the old legally-purchase-them-somewhere-else-then-bring-them-home trick.”
If you are doing it to avoid paying a state or city tax, they will probably arrest you for bootlegging illegal ammunition if you are caught.
Because that actually happens every time someone crosses the border into another state to buy gas or groceries. Yet another unenforceable law.
Also I noticed on re-reading that the idea is to increase the cost of committing crime. That presupposes that crime is the only purpose for owning ammo, which of course it isn’t.
Let’s hope that the people of Baltimore are smart enough to ensure that Otis Rolley never gets beyond the title of “candidate”. I too prefer that he hold the title of “inmate” after this. By conspiring, or attempting to conspire, to deprive or otherwise infringe upon the enumerated rights of others, he has proven himself unfit for public service, and a danger to society. As part of his sentence, maybe he should be ordered into a remedial education course on the U.S. Founding, and on the constitution.