The Los Angeles City Council was looking at adopting a so-called “gun violence” tax that copies what the City of Seattle did in July, placing a $25 sales tax on firearms and a nickel on the sale of each round of centerfire ammunition, as this issue of TGM went to press – a gun and ammo tax.
According to Guns.com, two members of the council, Paul Krekorian and Paul Koretz, are pushing the idea.
Seattle was almost immediately sued by the Second Amendment Foundation, National Shooting Sports Foundation and National Rifle Association over adoption of such a tax, and there has also been a legal action against a similar measure in Cook County, IL.
Krekorian and Koretz insisted in a filing message that, “While taxing the sales of firearms and ammunition will not prevent gun violence on its own, funding gun violence prevention programs could prove to be an initial step in creating a larger policy to save lives throughout the City and the nation as a whole. With the majority of gun related deaths being suicide or a combination of homicide and suicide, prevention programs may be able to reach those contemplating such measures.”
The Los Angeles measure would also require gunowners to report lost or stolen firearms. Seattle separately adopted that requirement when it passed the gun tax this past summer.
CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb told a reporter that this is the kind of legislative gun control that must be “nipped in the bud.”
“This city gun and ammunition tax scheme is being pushed nationally by the Bloomberg billionaire gun ban lobby,” Gottlieb told Guns.com. “They plan on using these tax funds to attack our gun rights with. That way they can use our own money against us and they don’t have to spend their own billions. We are going to see them push this in every major city that is controlled by anti-gun rights politicians who are part of the Bloomberg blitzkrieg.”
