{"id":90729,"date":"2023-03-13T10:52:38","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T15:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=90729"},"modified":"2023-03-13T10:52:55","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T15:52:55","slug":"90729","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=90729","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

New York lawmaker admits proposed ammo tax is meant as “disincentive” to gun ownership<\/a><\/p>\n

Thank you very much to New York Assembly member Pat Fahy for saying the quiet part out loud when talking about her proposed tax on ammunition. The Albany Democrat wants to see anywhere from a 2-to-5-cent tax on each round of ammunition sold in the state (basically, the bigger the bullet the higher the tax), with the money going towards community-based violence intervention groups. We\u2019ve seen similar schemes enacted to great fanfare (and little effect) in cities like Seattle, and lawmakers have even proposed this idea in New York before now, but rarely are lawmakers so explicit in their intention to\u00a0tax people out of a right<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if you buy 50 rounds, it\u2019ll be just a couple of extra dollars,\u201d said Fahy. \u201cSo,\u00a0it\u2019s not a huge tax, but another disincentive to arming up<\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If New York Democrats do end up adopting Fahy\u2019s bill and turning into law, that statement is going to come in very handy during the inevitable court challenge that will ensue. The Supreme Court doesn\u2019t look kindly on taxing the exercise of a constitutionally-protected right, especially when it is designed to chill the exercise of that right.<\/p>\n

The Court took up this issue back in the 1940s, in a case called\u00a0Murdock v. Pennsylvania<\/em>. At issue was an ordinance imposed by the town of Jeannette, Pennsylvania that required \u201call persons canvassing for or soliciting within said Borough, orders for goods, paintings, pictures, wares, or merchandise of any kind\u201d to obtain a license from town officials in addition to paying a fee for the privilege of doing so. When a group of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses were fined under the ordinance for selling religious tracts without acquiring the mandated license, they sued, and eventually the Supreme Court found in their favor.<\/p>\n

In its decision, the Court declared:<\/p>\n

\u201cthe First Amendment, which the Fourteenth makes applicable to the states, declares that \u2018Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . .\u201d It could hardly be denied that a tax laid specifically on the exercise of those freedoms would be unconstitutional. Yet the license tax imposed by this ordinance is, in substance, just that.\u2026<\/p>\n

A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the Federal Constitution. Thus, it may not exact a license tax for the privilege of carrying on interstate commerce although it may tax the property used in, or the income derived from, that commerce, so long as those taxes are not discriminatory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fahy\u2019s proposed ammo tax isn\u2019t a flat licensing tax like the ordinance in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, but thanks to her comment to the press there should be no doubt that the tax on every round of ammunition is designed to be discriminatory in nature against any and all New Yorkers who dare seek to exercise their right to keep and bear arms. When she talks about disincentivizing arming up, she\u2019s really saying the bill disincentivizes the exercise of a constitutionally-protected right, and that\u2019s a no-go according to SCOTUS.<\/p>\n

An ammo tax is also a terrible idea from a policy perspective. Seattle, Washington imposed a tax on the sale of both firearms and ammunition back in 2015, and it\u2019s brought in\u00a0far less money<\/a>\u00a0for violence prevention programs than supporters had predicted. They were boasting of $500,000 in tax revenue every year, but in 2019 about $85,000 was collected from the handful of remaining gun stores inside the city limits. Many FFLs chose to simply relocate beyond Seattle\u2019s borders, and many Seattle residents have chosen to buy their guns outside the city limits as well.<\/p>\n

Seattle\u2019s violent crime, meanwhile, has gotten exponentially worse. There were\u00a024 murders<\/a>\u00a0in Seattle in 2015; far fewer than the\u00a0\u00a055 homicides<\/a>\u00a0reported in the city last year. Seattle\u2019s gun and ammo tax hasn\u2019t made the city a safer place, and Fahy\u2019s proposal would be just as ineffective in New York. But as Fahy herself has made clear, her tax isn\u2019t about preventing crime. It\u2019s about preventing responsible New Yorkers from keeping and bearing arms for self-defense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York lawmaker admits proposed ammo tax is meant as “disincentive” to gun ownership Thank you very much to New York Assembly member Pat Fahy for saying the quiet part out loud when talking about her proposed tax on ammunition. The Albany Democrat wants to see anywhere from a 2-to-5-cent tax on each round of … 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":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enemies-foreign-domestic","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90729","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=90729"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90731,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90729\/revisions\/90731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}