Why is alcohol not taxed and banned like cigarettes?
Alcohol is taxed and heavily regulated. It is also probably the number 1 killer in the US. It just does not always get credit for the deaths it causes. If you are drunk and fall down the stairs...the cause of death is listed as a fall. If you die of Cirhossis of the liver, the cause is listed as cirhossis. If You get drunk and beat someone to death the cause is listed as assault etc. Smoking is the same way. Unfortunately nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known. The Tobacco industry has been studying their cigarette formulations to make them as addictive as possible. The people that use them get very sick, and we as taxpayers and health insurance payers end up paying for it. Alcohol is not banned becasue that does not work to prevent alcohol abuse. We tried that during prohibition. All it did was create a lot of gangsters bootlegging alcohol. Banning Tobacco would probably do the same thing, controlling where it can be consumed it not much different that do the same with alcohol. Second hand smoke is a very real threat. Do not believe he bunk put out by the tobacco lobby that it does not hurt anyone. Any smoke is bad that is why people cough when exposed to smoke. That is their body telling them that the smoke is not good. It is just common sense
Here again there seems to be this stubborn insistence on the “sameness” of Australia and the United States. Two entirely different cultures and national histories are the “same”?? Not a chance.Americans are historically against any taxes. President George Washington had to send troops to quell rioting over a liquor tax. I grant that it’s “mindless” sometimes but it’s still ingrained in our national attitude and consciousness.Australia has no Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. In the US anything that ‘infringes’ on that right is wrong-wrong-wrong!! And that definitely includes taxes on ammunition.Finally, the theory that taking away the tool from everyone or even limiting the ability to buy AMMUNITION (not “bullets”) would “reduce gun massacres” is just one theory that seems to work in countries that don’t value the right to self defense and never had the unalienable right to keep and bear arms. They don’t miss it or even want it because they never had it without “government permission” in Australia.We have the power to just say “No” to government in America.Besides, we believe it’s unjust to penalize the innocent majority in order to try to “prevent” the few from committing crimes. There are other ways of “preventing” and one of those ways is to “stop” the perpetrator with gun fire.Put a seventy year-old man on the street where he might encounter a younger, stronger man (or men) who could cripple or kill him with their fists and forbid him from having the means to effectively stop such an attack and what have you accomplished? You ‘prevent’ a gun massacre but guarantee injury or death for some ‘’unlucky’ people. Here in the United States we don’t believe in sacrificing some innocents so that others can live “gun free.” Government (and politicians) will not be allowed to determine who’s lucky and who’s not.
Cars.The tax could be on the vehicle, the registration, the mileage, or the fuel/energy, or some combination. And yes, I know this choice is politically untenable in much of the U.S., at least. But there are a lot of good, and potentially life-saving reasons to tax cars, and the money could go into making and maintaining other, better options.Just in the U.S., traffic deaths from crashes number around 40,000 annually. Would it count as “saving the most lives” if we eliminated that many deaths, or even cut the rate in half?What if we counted the public health gains that would come with improved air quality, both in cities and in surrounding places where smog spreads? Lung cancer also kills plenty of non-smokers, and it’s hardly the only respiratory ailment made worse by air pollution.What if we counted all the people who might give another try with the bus or train, or biking or walking, and thus improve their physical health? What if a bunch of those people became less isolated by getting out of their cars, and less stressed from spending so much time waiting through congestion alone, and their mental health improved, too?What if we counted the oil wars we could stop fighting, the oil spills we wouldn’t need to clean up, and the groundwater pollution we wouldn’t be creating if we didn’t extract so much oil?What if we counted the reduced carbon accumulation from not burning so much fossil fuel?What if we reduced the amount of city and countryside lined with asphalt, so we could prevent runoff, recharge groundwater, and reduce the heat gain and retention in urban areas? What if we started to get a handle on suburban sprawl?What if we started to put the immense amount of money, public space, and time we now spend on roads, driving, congestion, and parking into mass transit and safe places to bike and walk that really served the public—all of it, not just able adults—and into better, more vibrant public spaces, and even into affordable housing close to destinations? What if, in the process, we made strides toward alleviating some of the most devastating effects of poverty?We’re so accustomed to cars that we hardly even see their deleterious effects. A well-designed tax would create a disincentive to drive so much, as well as free up money to put toward higher and better uses, including better and more accessible transportation choices.
Question for the people who heavily agree on the 2nd ammedent?
Not sure you can I am against gun bans etc but humans are humans and there are always those who will break laws no matter how many laws there are that's why we have jails. however i will state that there are several counties in the U.S. that Require their homeowners to own a handgun these counties have some of the lowest crime rates in the U.S. where the ones with the strictest gun laws have some of the highest.....Same goes for countries that have banned or severely restricted guns their murder, rape, assault, and child molestation rates have skyrocketed since. For verification you can go to most any countries Bureau of Crime Statistics sites and see these statistics for yourself.
No, because the term “arms” in the Constitution when applied to firearms includes the ammunition. Validly increasing taxes on ammo would have to serve a purpose beyond infringement of Constitutional rights. The American Revolution was started when the British government attempted to seize ammunition from the colonials.Controlling billions of rounds of ammo would be even more difficult than controlling more than 100 million firearms. If the firearms were illegal, they would become hidden and shooting for practice almost impossible.Most ammo is expended for target practice. Few rounds are fired during crimes or valid civilian defense. Few rounds are fired while hunting compared to target shooting. For these reasons, the amount of ammunition already in existence would likely serve the needs of criminals for centuries.
Firstly, people focus on both. They also focus on cancer, obesity, diabetes, drug overdoses and AIDS. "People" is a broad term, and there are many simultaneous foci possible.Secondly, you can't meaningfully compare these two things. There is a fundamental difference between deaths from smoking and death from firearms.Smoking is mostly people slowly killing themselves. Even the second-hand smoke is a slow killer, and is something most people can avoid if they choose to (children of smokers excepted). Smoking deaths are a tragedy, but they're not very dramatic, and don't involve anyone maliciously causing someones death through an intentional act of violence. Yet, most western countries are banning smoking, investing in education, and so on, and slowly, smokers are quitting (Smoking In U.S. Declines Sharply).Firearms, however, are frequently people taking a conscious choice to kill someone else. They are also suicides and accidents, and these are tragedies too. In most cases, the person who died was the victim of a moment of malice, stupidity or depression, and the availability of the firearm turned that moment from a fight, an injury or a suicide attempt into a death. Compared to any other country, the US has a far higher incidence of death and injury caused by firearms, and not coincidentally, has more firearms per capita than any other country, and a gun-toting culture to boot. Yet the solution is simple - it's been done in the UK and Australia, and can be done in the US. It makes people angry when such a simple problem is perpetuated by the gun lobby.