Quote:
Originally Posted by Giantone
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/op...oney.html?_r=2&
Make Gun Companies Pay Blood Money
GUN manufacturers have gone to great lengths to avoid any moral responsibility or legal accountability for the social costs of gun violence — the deaths and injuries of innocent victims, families torn apart, public resources spent on gun-related crime and medical expenses incurred.
But there is a simple and direct way to make them accountable for the harm their products cause. For every gun sold, those who manufacture or import it should pay a tax. The money should then be used to create a compensation fund for innocent victims of gun violence.
This proposal is based on a fundamentally conservative principle — that those who cause injury should be made to “internalize” the cost of their activity by paying for it. Now, gun manufacturers and sellers are mostly protected from lawsuits by federal law.
As it happens, a model for this approach already exists. Under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, those injured by vaccines are eligible for compensation from a fund financed by an excise tax on the sale of every dose of vaccine. In creating this no-fault system in the 1980s, Congress sought to provide care for those injured by vaccines while protecting manufacturers from undue litigation
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Im surprised they didnt parallel the Victims of Violent Crime Compensation Fund which provides funds for medical bills of victims of violent crimes who can not afford the medical expenses. The fund is funded by "wages" earned in jail by inmates convicted of violent crimes. So if an inmate makes 40 cents an hour cleaning dishes, 30 cents of that goes to the fund.
In CA I got 20k for facial reconstruction surgery. The ER took about 10k and the plastic surgeon agreed to cap his fee at the balance of the fund limit (20k). I was a broke law student at that time and did not have health insurance. (under obamacare I could have remained on my parents plan). If this fund was not around .... I couldnt imagine what the left side of my face would look like.
at least for me, I am a big fan of that fund and who ever thought of the idea. the comparison is not apples to apples though as technically a gun manufacturer hasnt done anything illegal or wrong . . i guess the argument would be that they, in manufacturing the gun as an intended killing weapon, contributed to the act of killing.