That’s great and all, but the data are in the article. Your hypotheticals don’t do much to change the numbers of guns flowing in from other states. If your argument is that the counterfactual would be even more gun crime, you’re welcome to make it; it’s just a really weak argument to lean into.
I always feel bad for Presidents when they do this. It has zero effect on the supply at a high level or the cost at the pump. The reason they do it is so the news covers the Administration doing something and people see that coverage. The fact of the matter is that the President cannot meaningfully act in a manner that lowers the price of gas to consumers.
The constitutionality of this tax will come down to how the Roberts Court wants to interpret and apply the 200-year old concept first issued in an opinion during the Marshall Court – the power to tax is the power to destroy. The government cannot use its authority to levy taxes in a manner which significantly encroaches on the exercise of an enumerated right. I like CA’s idea here, but it’s all going to come down to implementation.
States have long been called “laboratories of democracy” for exactly this reason. I’d actually argue that the current climate calcifies the process of policy experimentation in states and among them.