Untitled Gun Control Post

Why does this column have no title? Because, good readers, I began looking at this editorial from the L.A. Times last night and it’s still too mind boggling to wrap my brain around. Jeffrey Fagan and Stephen D. Sugarman seem to be upset over the Supreme Court’s finding that the people’s right to keep and bear arms actually means they have a right to keep and bear arms. Further, they’ve never quite gotten over Congress deciding that people can’t sue gun manufacturers out of existence for selling products that do exactly what they are advertised to do. Never ones to be deterred, however, the intrepid duo have a modest proposal for us. (All supplied emphais mine.)

By using a strategy known as “performance-based regulation,” we would deputize private actors — the gun makers — to deal with the negative effects of their products in ways that promote the public good.

In other words, rather than telling gun makers what to do, performance-based regulation would tell them what outcome they must achieve: Reduce deaths by guns. Companies that achieve the target outcomes might receive large financial bonuses; companies that don’t would face severe financial penalties. Put simply, gun makers — whose products kill even when used as directed – would have to take responsibility for curbing the consequent public health toll.

So under this plan, products manufactured to meet or exceed all current safety requirements, (multiple safety locks, able to be fitted with trigger guards, fail-safe firing pins, etc.) would still be responsible for the actions of people employing them long after they leave the factory. I must say… that’s some crackerjack thinking. In fact, I believe this revolutionary model could be employed to solve a host of other problems.

Police have recently noted the rise in cases of young people illegally obtaining powerful prescription drugs and abusing them for dangerous, recreational use. For each instance of such abuse, perhaps we could levy multi-million dollar fines on the pharmaceutical companies. Soon we could effectively shut them all down and there won’t be any drugs for anyone. Problem solved!

Obesity is a growing problem (… sorry) in our nation which leads to a host of health related disasters. Beyond that, it can ruin the view at public beaches and pools, so it hurts the tourism industry as well. (It’s sort of a negative trickle-down thing, don’t you know.) Let’s propose a set of benchmarks for restaraunts in the United States to meet. If the average Body Mass Index in the country doesn’t come down by a given percentage each year, these transfatty death merchants would be fined en masse. To avoid the penalties, restaurant owners would have to be able to demonstrate that they only served tofu, garden salads, green tea and room temperature tap water.

Oh, and while we’re at it, every time some gang-banger beats up another gang-banger with a Louisville Slugger, let’s impose a massive fine on Major League Baseball. I’ve still never really gotten over the players’ strike of 1994, and this would be an excellent way to show those bastards that we’re still ticked off.