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In the US, especially in this polarised climate, the vast majority of changes to law start with one state, and then another, and then another until slowly it gets adopted around the country.

california is big. It may work better than other places, but a fed licensing program would be ideal

"Damn! He musta did something cuz he put fifty thousand dollars worth of bullets in his ass!"

You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control. Men, we need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost five thousand dollars… five thousand dollars per bullet… You know why? Cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars there would be no more innocent bystanders.

Yeah! Every time somebody get shot we’d say, ‘Damn, he must have done something ... Shit, he’s got fifty thousand dollars worth of bullets in his ass.’

And people would think before they killed somebody if a bullet cost five thousand dollars. ‘Man I would blow your fucking head off…if I could afford it.’ ‘I’m gonna get me another job, I’m going to start saving some money, and you’re a dead man. You’d better hope I can’t get no bullets on layaway.’

So even if you get shot by a stray bullet, you wouldn't have to go to no doctor to get it taken out. Whoever shot you would take their bullet back, like "I believe you got my property.

This is the fundamental problem with gun regulation at the state level -- they can be effectively abrogated by neighboring states with more lax regulation. FiveThirtyEight did a piece on this a while ago. In that article they show how strict gun laws in Illinois, California, and Maryland are defeated by guns flowing in from the surrounding states with more lax laws. The vast majority of gun crime is committed with guns which are illegally possessed, but were initially obtained through legal means.

Wait.... You're telling me that they continue to do crimes with guns even when the guns are illegal? Criminals? Really? I refuse to believe it.

The constitutionality of this tax will come down to how the Roberts Court wants to interpret and apply the 200-year old concept first issued in an opinion during the Marshall Court -- the power to tax is the power to destroy. The government cannot use its authority to levy taxes in a manner which significantly encroaches on the exercise of an enumerated right. I like CA's idea here, but it's all going to come down to implementation.

There's also this crazy thing called an illegal market which circumvents tax entirely

Where do you think illegally acquired firearms are sourced from?

PDF: ATF NFCTA vol2 part3, Crime Guns Recovered and Traced
ATF traced 70.2% (1 million firearms) of submitted 'crime guns' to having originally been purchased from a dealer. An additional 22.6% (⅓ million) were from pawnbrokes. [page 7]
In 12.2% of the cases [page 26] purchaser and possessor was the same.
One or more guns are stolen in 63% of household burglaries.

From conclusion page 41:

Traced crime guns typically originate from the legal supply chain of manufacture (or import), distribution, and retail sale. Crime guns may change hands a number of times after that first retail sale, and some of those transactions may be a theft or violate one or more regulations on firearm commerce.

Smoking is so much more prevalent in other states than it is in California. Even vaping has been dropping off recently. California overall has less binge drinking than other states but I’d attribute that as much to good weather and lots to do instead of just taxes.

Both of those are way down from when I was in my twenties.