The power to tax is the power to destroy, as the US Supreme court said. You tax things that are a menace to society. Not one of our God-given rights.
And besides, guns are not the cause of a mental health crisis. If you are going down that route, then why not tax the hell out of Big Pharma. The drugs they flood our nation with, even the "anti-depressents", admittedly cause depression and suicidal thoughts. They admit that in the advertisements. And something like 10-20% of young people are pumped up on ritalin, anti-depressants, or some other mind-altering drug. This is a real cause of people flipping out.
50 or 60 years ago, American high school students would take their firearms to school for marksmanship training. And there were no school shootings then, and crime in society was much much lower. Guns are just a tool. They are not the cause of homicides.
Take a state like West Virginia. A bunch of "rednecks" with guns. But crime is among the lowest in the nation. And they are poor too. Then go to big cities like Chicago, which even have total handgun bans. But the highest violent crime rate in the nation.
Gun bans only cause law-abiding, decent people (who follow laws) to disarm themselves. The criminal element in society (who disregard laws) will always be armed. Therefore, gun bans cause an increase in the crime rate (see Chicago, D.C.). If you want to lower crime, you remove gun restrictions, and decent people are armed too. And the criminal element in society then knows that decent people are armed, and they are deterred from robbing homes (etc) because of the likelihood that their potential victims are armed.
A school is an easy "target" to kill people because a psycho knows that no one there is armed. If you want to increase safety at schools, the criminal element must know that people there could be armed. Therefore, you have armed police officers at the school, allow teachers to carry firearms, etc.
