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Comment by AlwaysRock | Hacker News Reader

Chicago started charging 7 cent a bag and that certainly made me think twice about my bag use.

I can't believe they didn't do this first instead of doing that ridiculous "No disposable plastic bag" rule. The grocery store by my house (marianos) just gave everyone paper, but it seems like most other places just switched to thicker plastic bags, called them "reusable" and gave out just as many as before.

Hey I liked the whole thick walled bag.

Suddenly this 7 cents are the biggest expense and everyone remembers to bring their bag, which is awesome because effects are great.

I really don't want to give the city more money. They've already upped income tax, property tax (property values have been going up as well), and they played with the sales tax.

So you're ok with it, if the money just goes to the shop, but they are obligated to ask that minimum price?

Given the context of what's been happening in Chicago, and a bit of the mismanagement of how they prioritize things: It's been frustrating to be hit with a lot more taxes.

How do you stop people using plastic once then throwing it away?

Ask them. TAX them. Make it illegal. $100 deposit. Don't worry about it.

Plastic bags have some externalities relating to how people discard them. Why can't the city tax to help recoup costs?

I see you haven't experienced the latest increases in taxes in Chicago. Soda was one of them, but that was repealed.

Imagine if they threw you in jail for it. I bet you'd think even harder and we'd definitely get rid of plastic bags.

Same idea for guns. Buy back guns for $10,000 each. Soon have guns under control and off the streets.

People would be breaking into each others houses to sell them.

That would cost $3T if everyone turned their guns in.

And would be a better use of the money than most other things the government does already.

Like schools, roads, medicare, research, etc??? OK.

Soon have guns under control

Or, more likely, they would make more guns to compensate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect

The implicit step one being that sale of guns / assault rifles were banned, as it should be.

The War on Drugs is a testament that simply banning something definitively means it disappears.

People don't get psychologically addicted to guns like they do to most drugs. Gun bans are perfectly successful in drastically reducing gun violence in countries other than the US.

I don't disagree, but most guns bans in other countries don't include paying $10k per weapon, which is the proposal here.

People are plenty addicted to being paid $10K per to manufacture guns. Who needs to sell them?

I don't think you get what the word "addicted" means.

Also, obviously you need to ban the manufacture of such weapons before you offer to buy them back.

If this is the best argument you can think of against 7-cent plastic bags, you might as well admit defeat and say that they are the greatest things since sliced bread, because that sounds about the same to me.

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