The argument for imposing 'sin taxes' on guns and alcohol is analytically flawed and, practically speaking, doomed to fail.

This is DA MP Ian Cameron's response to an opinion piece by Dean Peacock and Claire Taylor. Daily Maverick sent their piece to Cameron before publication, and he agreed to respond. You can read the Peacock-Taylor opinion piece here.

Dean Peacock and Claire Taylor ask, with an air of moral certainty, "If alcohol and guns fuel violence, why aren't we taxing them properly?" It is a seductive question because it sounds bold, decisive and suggests seriousness in a country that often lacks the necessary seriousness when it comes to actual solutions.

But, sadly, it is also analytically flawed and, practically speaking, doomed to fail when it comes to real community safety strategies.

Let us begin with what they get right.

South Africa has a violence crisis. Women are too often killed by intimate partners. Young men are too often shot in taverns and at taxi ranks. Children are horrifically caught in crossfire. South Africans experience crime not as policy debates or quarterly crime stats, but as their daily realities.

But identifying a crisis is not the same as diagnosing it correctly. And when you misdiagnose, you prescribe the wrong medicine and potentially end up worsening the situation.

The category...