In order to fund gun violence prevention initiatives and trauma centers, Congressional Republicans seek to rescind or obstruct attempts by primarily blue states to impose excise sales taxes on weapons, ammo, and firearm accessories.
Ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. James Risch (R-ID), will submit a measure on Thursday to prevent states and localities from enacting laws that would, in his words, “put a major financial burden on America’s law-abiding gun owners to push an anti-Second Amendment agenda.”
More than half a dozen states are attempting to emulate California, which on July 1 passed the nation’s first-ever 11% weapons tax on top of the 10% federal minimum tax.
The Freedom from Unfair Gun Taxes Act, which Risch introduced and which the Washington Examiner first reported on, is not feasible under a split Congress, but it is the kind of legislation that Republicans are hoping to pass if they win both the House and the Senate this autumn.
Risch released a statement saying, “Democrats’ newest attack on the 2nd Amendment looks like an exorbitant excise tax to support gun control programs.”
Under the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act, state firearm fees now exist to support federal wildlife conservation initiatives. This resolution would not change those taxes.
The state of California intends to use the $160 million it raises from the new levy, which Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed into law, to finance initiatives aimed at preventing gun violence, including school safety and taking away the weapons of domestic abusers. Legislators in a few other states, including Maryland, Missouri, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, and Washington, have suggested doing so in some capacity.
For instance, supporters of a proposed 11% tax on firearms and ammunition assert that the state’s trauma department, which treats gunshot victims, would receive $13 million annually from the tax.
Cook County in Illinois, as well as the cities of Seattle and Tacoma in Washington, are at least three municipalities that have already taken such steps.
The bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), charged that his state was attempting to “increase the expense of self-defense out of reach for any American.”
“Issa told the Washington Examiner in a statement that California’s recent imposition of a ‘sin tax’ on weapons and ammunition compares a key constitutional freedom with gambling or drug usage.”
Gun rights organizations, including the National Rifle Association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, support Risch’s measure.
