We should give out rewards — I mean big, serious rewards — for tips that help police confiscate illegal guns. ...I like that they thought of the logistical issues involved.
A bunch of logistical issues would need to be worked out, including how large the rewards would be (I think $1,000 or more wouldn’t be crazy) and how police should respond to tips and confiscate guns while respecting civil liberties.
Some of the comments were interesting too, ranging from recollections of Chris Rock's suggestion of making bullets expensive to (semi-valid) critiques of the suggestions. Really interesting reading.
[via NYT Freakonomics]
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"We should give out rewards — I mean big, serious rewards — for tips that help police confiscate illegal guns. ..."
ReplyDeleteAnd how would it be determined that they are illegal? All you would do is enable a lot of people to harass people just by saying that they have illegal guns, whether they do or not. In my experience, the average non-gunowner is amazingly ignorant of firearms, and wouldn't know a cap pistol from the real thing.
bobg, that's a good point. hehe, i guess this is one logistical issue for which the proponent of this view didn't account. although, from what you're saying, it seems you think that the author thinks that all real guns are illegal (which is not the case in the us). i think the author was suggesting that people who know about the presence of illegal guns will be more likely to act on that prior knowledge of the illegality of the gun (ie, maybe he/she knows the owner doesn't have the proper license for it) if he/she has stronger incentives to do so (balancing and outweighing the disincentives they have against doing so).
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