2nd Amendment Rights Attacked Through Taxes

March 11, 2013

More attacks on our Constitutional 2nd Amendment rights and a direct assault on our pocket books. Proposed new taxes of up to 50% on ammunition purchases; up to 25% for the purchase of firearms; and annual firearm registration fees. (This is at a state level. By law, there is no federal firearms registration. And here's another good reason not to have one.)

Law makers want to make firearms owners responsible for funding programs that politicians started and didn't fund properly or that they de-funded. They want to shift the burden of "mental health" and other programs on a subset of citizens who aren't causing those problems.

For comparison and justification, this article points to the cigarette taxes imposed on those industries to fund health and tobacco education programs. The major difference they don't point out is that cigarettes are inherently harmful to EVERY person who uses them, and if you believe the 2nd-hand smoke arguments then they're harmful to everyone within range of their smoke. Firearms, on the other hand, produce no harmful effects in the overwhelming majority of their uses - millions to 1.

Another canned Democratic Party solution to a problem - RAISE TAXES! In this case it's convenient for them that they can also help demonize firearms ownership (trying to establish a connection between firearms and mental health) and that the proposed taxes, in their minds, will mostly affect their opponents.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/09/nation/la-na-gun-taxes-20130309

Bills in states, Congress seek to raise firearm taxes

articles.latimes.com

Another article on the same topic. This article mentions a federally proposed tax that I didn't catch in the first article.

"At the federal level, Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., proposed a bill that would impose a 10 percent tax on "any concealable" firearm. The revenue would be used to help fund a national gun buyback program.

So now "concealable" firearms are even more demonic than other firearms. I forgot to comment on the "gun buyback" program in my earlier post. These programs are a complete waste of taxpayer money. Gun control politicians and the media talk about the good they do by "taking guns off the street". The implication is that these firearms are "on the street", as in, in the hands of criminals. In reality, these programs are taking firearms "out of circulation" but they're NOT taking them from criminals; they're NOT collecting the guns that are used in crime; and they're NOT having much impact on the number of firearms in circulation. They ARE spending taxpayer money that could be used much more effectively elsewhere. The ~2000 firearms mentioned in the Los Angeles gun buyback may sound like a lot but they don't even cause the needle to move on the estimated ~300m guns in circulation.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/11/lawmakers-eye-new-taxes-for-guns-ammo/?cmpid=cmty_twitter_fn

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  Lawmakers eye new taxes on guns, ammo in latest wave of legislation

  www.foxnews.com