End Subsidized Intoxication to End Gun Violence

American civil liberties and my Constitutional rights are being threatened because political rhetoric cannot address a key social-environmental issue, namely the de facto subsidy of alcohol consumption. The CDC report at http://www.cdc.gov/features/costsofdrinking/ presents the facts at hand.

guns & alcohol KILL
cars & alcohol KILL
pills & alcohol KILL
sex & alcohol KILL

What Is So Hard To Understand?

Distributed Beverage Alcohol is simply not paying the social cost incurred by its distribution. This is a key social-environmental issue. There will be plenty of money to fund universal health care, public schools, judicial matters, police, parks, and infrastructure maintenance if the USA makes beverage alcohol pay its way in real dollars. This is no more to ask of drinkers and of the beverage alcohol industry than what voters have insisted smokers and tobacco companies pay for the damage caused by distributed tobacco products. The CDC estimates the real cost of drinking beverage alcohol to be $2.05 per serving. [see http://www.cdc.gov/features/costsofdrinking/ ] . To know this cost of use exists and yet to not tax it commensurately constitutes a de facto subsidy for public intoxication. This cruel absurdity is fostering violence, including gun violence. The States and the Federal Government share equally in this blind duplicity.

A majority of gun violence in America, including domestic violence, is caused by alcohol intoxication. Consequently, taxing beverage alcohol use is gun control. This petition calls for the Federal Government to institute a $2 per serving excise tax on distributed beverage alcohol to be shared equally by the States and the Federal Government, and includes this caveat: If convicted of Driving Under the Influence, one loses their right to keep guns in their possession during that correctional period. Clearly, if you can not be trusted to drive a car, you cannot be trusted with an arsenal.

Sex & alcohol are likewise a recipe for tragedy because intoxicated sex produces so many unintended pregnancies which lead to abortion.

Americans have the right to drink alcohol and the right to use tobacco just as they have a Constitutional right to own guns. These options can co-exist if and only if each pays its own way. The governments do not have any obligation to subsidize these activities. However, any government concerned with public well being and sustainability is obligated to hold in check choices known to have a negative impact.

Keep a simple fact in mind: A distributed beverage alcohol excise tax would be a tax no one has to pay because you have the right to make your own beverage alcohol or you can simply abstain.

Taxing beverage alcohol use is gun control.