{"id":108925,"date":"2025-04-03T11:53:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T16:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=108925"},"modified":"2025-04-03T11:53:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T16:53:39","slug":"108925","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=108925","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawsuit challenges constitutionality of Prop KK guns and ammunition tax.<\/a><\/p>\n

COLORADO SPRINGS \u2014 An El Paso County resident, a Colorado licensed firearms dealer and several gun rights advocacy organizations are asking for an injunction in Denver District Court to halt a new state excise tax on guns and ammunition.<\/p>\n

Zachary Langston along with the National Rifle Association, the Colorado State Shooting Association (CSSA), the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and Magnum Shooting Center of Colorado Springs are asking a judge to stop Proposition KK from taking effect.<\/p>\n

The defendants named in the case are Heidi Humphreys, the Executive Director of the Department of Revenue, who is required by statute to \u201cadminister and enforce the tax,\u201d and Michael J. Allen, the District Attorney of El Paso County, who is charged with prosecuting the criminal penalties imposed by Proposition KK.<\/p>\n

Proposition KK \u2014 passed in November with 54 percent of the vote \u2014 will add a 6.5 percent excise tax on the manufacture and sale of firearms and ammunition. It will be imposed on firearms dealers, manufacturers and ammunition vendors, with the exception of those selling less than $20,000 per year as well as law enforcement agencies and active-duty military.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was filed on the basis that the tax is unconstitutional because it does not pass a \u201cmeans-end\u201d test handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the\u00a02022 Bruen decision<\/a>, which says gun rights restrictions must be consistent with the nation\u2019s historical tradition of firearm regulations.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Taxing an enumerated right<\/h3>\n

\u201cThe United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held in various contexts that the exercise of a constitutional right cannot be singled out for special taxation,\u201d says the complaint in part, filed on March 31.<\/p>\n

\u201cFederal legislation to prevent this sort of tax was introduced just days ago in both the House and Senate,\u201d SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb said. \u201cThey\u2019re calling it the Freedom from Unfair Gun Taxes Act, and greedy, anti-gun lawmakers in Colorado are probably at least partly responsible for such a bill on Capitol Hill. You simply cannot tax the exercise of a constitutionally-protected fundamental right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tax went into effect April 1.<\/p>\n

Colorado became the first state to impose such a tax through a ballot initiative, 11 other states have similar excise taxes that were enacted through the state legislature. Prop KK was referred to the ballot by the Democrat-controlled Colorado legislature. It was expected to generate $39 million in the first year, with the money being earmarked for crime victim services, veteran\u2019s mental health services, children and youth behavioral heath crisis response system and school security grants.<\/p>\n

\u201cProposition KK will \u2014 as intended \u2014 financially burden both vendors and consumers seeking to exercise or facilitate the exercise of Second Amendment rights,\u201d plaintiffs continue in the complaint, adding the that the right to keep and bear arms \u201cwouldn\u2019t mean much\u201d without the \u201cclosely related rights\u201d of being able to acquire both firearms and ammunition.<\/p>\n

Petitioners are asking the court to declare a permanent injunction against enforcing the tax. They are represented by Colorado Springs-based First & Fourteenth PLLC, a law firm specializing in constitutional challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cColorado\u2019s new law impermissibly taxes an enumerated constitutional right,\u201d said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. \u201cNot only does the tax lack any basis in our nation\u2019s history and tradition of firearms regulation, it violates Supreme Court precedent that states the exercise of constitutional rights cannot be targeted through taxation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The complaint is available here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawsuit challenges constitutionality of Prop KK guns and ammunition tax. COLORADO SPRINGS \u2014 An El Paso County resident, a Colorado licensed firearms dealer and several gun rights advocacy organizations are asking for an injunction in Denver District Court to halt a new state excise tax on guns and ammunition. Zachary Langston along with the National … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,23,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-courts","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108926,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108925\/revisions\/108926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}