Fox News:
A pair of Democratic lawmakers are proposing steep new taxes on handguns and ammunition, and tying the revenues to programs aimed at preventing gun violence.
Called the “Gun Violence Prevention and Safe Communities Act,” the bill sponsored by William Pascrell, D-N.J., and Danny Davis, D-Ill., would nearly double the current 11 percent tax on handguns, while raising the levy on bullets and cartridges from 11 percent to 50 percent.
“This bill represents a major investment in the protection of our children and our communities, and reflects the long-term societal costs of gun and ammunition purchases in our country,” Pascrell said.
The lawmakers say the bill would generate $600 million per year, which would be used to fund law-enforcement and gun violence prevention.
Critics predicted defeat for the measure.
“What the anti-gun interests can’t ban, they want to tax it out of existence,” Alan Gottlieb, chairman for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, told FoxNews.com. “It’s nothing more than confiscatory taxation.
“I doubt this bill will pass, but we will lobby against it if need be,” he added. “This is simply another shot against gun owners in this country.”
The bill would exempt all federal, state and local agencies, including police departments, from paying the tax.
The bill would also increase the transfer tax on all weapons (except antique guns) covered under the National Firearms Act (which excludes most common guns) from $200 to $500 and index to inflation and increase the transfer tax for any other weapon from $5 to $100.
I don’t care much about the increase in fee for the tax stamp, since I will never, ever register a firearm with the ATF or pay a tax stamp. But the philosophy is that if we cannot beat them at an outright ban, then we can tax them to the point that they cannot afford to own weapons or ammunition.
This approach is both irrational and unconstitutional, not to mention immoral. But something must source the massive expansion of the federal Leviathan, and the Congress has figured out that we will not give up our guns or our shooting. Feed the beast, even if it makes use of what they loath so much – our freedoms. It sure must seem a Faustian bargain to them.
