Guns and Money Part 2

First off most of the problem is handguns or pistols, since these are the murderers favorite weapon since it is easily concealed. In any case, many would argue that a shotgun is better for home defence. An assault rifle is good too, since as the military will tell you ,overwhelming fire power is the rule of the game but it might be tough to convince a jury  of that. For these reasons only pistols should be considered. There are about 140,000 pistol licenses in Connecticut and if the $2 billion bill were spread among them equally it would be about $14,000 each. That is in effect the annual cost to society of the existence of that gun, however that  would be a bit steep since a lot of the guns come from out of state anyway and even if a gun is stolen, it is not the same as actually murdering someone.
You always hear there are 25,000 gun laws already, they just have to be enforced. Maybe 12,832 of them need to be rewritten to make them more easily enforceable. But which ones? Your head begins to hurt, but it needn't since you know the power of money or the threat of its loss will fix the problem one way or the other. Of course the effect would be limited until other states passed similar legislation, but where better to start than in the most intelligent town in the most intelligent state in the union?
 It would be a huge improvement  if only 10 people were killed by guns in Connecticut each year, think of maybe 90 lives saved,

Guns and Money

Studies have shown that each murder causes a $20,000,000 hit to the local economy. $5,000,000 is spent by the government in crime investigation, prosecution and incarceration and the balance is the hit the economy takes because a lot of crime causes businesses to flee or not set up shop in the first place. So with about 100 gun homicides last year in Connecticut, it is fair to say the economy took a $2 billion hit. Look around you, things maybe improving marginally, but do you see an economy that needs to take a $2 billion hit every year, like about 20,000 jobs that would otherwise exist. I dont think so, so at whose door should this bill be laid? You could argue with perfect logic, the murderer, but probably Michael Skakel would be the only murderer in recent history who had a spare $20,000,000 floating around. Should it be everybody like it is now? I don't have a gun, it is nothing to do with me, so why should I pay?  Should it be gun owners? Most will say my gun is in my night stand, no one has taken it and used it to kill anybody, so why should I pay? But clearly with no gun owners and thus no guns, this problem would not exist, so the bill should at least partially be laid at the feet of gun owners in some way shape or form.

Third Parties and Third Rails

A great advantage of being a third party candidate is that I can talk freely about third rail issues without committing political suicide no matter what I say.
A doozy of a third rail issue that I will return to is guns. Let us approach the issue by noting that approximately 10,000 people are killed each year by gunfire. The first question is while zero is the only acceptable number, what number can we tolerate given the realities of human existence?
Looking for guidance in Syria, 30,000 people have been killed over the last year and a half and many call for military intervention to stop it. This however is not hugely more than the number who have been killed in this country over the same period. Against this Syria is a country less than one tenth of the size of the US, but in the US the killings have been going on for decades as opposed to months.
Next we have to avoid Stalinist thinking. You know Stalin famously said if one person dies, that is a tragedy, if a million people die that is a statistic. We may be seeing this in the response to the Aurora shooting where 12 people tragically died, which did nothing more than bump the total shot dead for that day up to 42 from 30, but caused an international sensation and much soul searching about gun control. So it can be inferred when we banish Stalin from our minds, that 10,000 people shot each year is intolerable. Then we remember we are Americans, we dont just go around wringing our hands we do something about it.
Pretty quickly we will start talking about money.

Off Year Issues

Last year I posted some entries about new sources of energy. A year away from the election is a good time to look at more long range issues. This is still a serious issue and since state governments have to a certain extent pick winners and losers when facilitating or financing new companies with a view to improving the state's economy over the long term, you need legislators who can keep track of emerging technology. Giving credit where credit is due, it has been the Republican Senate Minority leader of the Massachusetts State House who has been doing this and even Mitt Romney has alluded to it. Meanwhile locally, companies in Maine Massachusetts and New Jersey are hard at work on these types of  new energy technologies. But we have an election in six weeks, so I must now add to what I would like to set in motion as you state legislator starting next year.