Taxing Rights

Tuesday 9 April 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

I wonder how the left would respond to a proposed tax on free speech. Don’t want your house searched without a warrant? That’ll be an extra tax. But because the left often seems to view the Bill of Rights as some kind of buffet where they can pick and choose what they want and leave others behind, some leftists have decided that taxing those who wish to exercise their right to keep and bear arms is somehow appropriate. Politico on the new movement to tax firearms and ammunition as a means specifically to limit access to them:

State and local officials are pushing a new way to expand gun control: taxes.
Gun owners in and around Chicago last week started paying a new $25 tax on every firearm they purchase. In California, a statehouse panel on April 15 will hear testimony on a nickel-per-bullet tax measure, and in New Jersey, lawmakers want to slap an additional 5 percent sales tax on guns and ammo.

The effort to impose new taxes on guns and bullets faces serious opposition from pro-gun groups, but it shows how far some states and localities are willing to go in this new frontier on gun control — especially as Washington struggles to find consensus even on the most scaled-back gun proposals being debated in Congress.

And to make matters worse, these lawmakers are collectivizing the over 100 million gun owners in the US with the very few (comparitively) who actually commit crimes, saying that because I own a gun, I should be financially responsible for the crimes that others commit with guns.

“I’m not asking to take away people’s guns, I’m just saying that for an activity that is relatively dangerous, obviously, people who participate in that activity should pay the full costs of that activity,” said Maryland state Delegate Jon Cardin of Baltimore, who in January introduced legislation to tax bullets at 50 percent.

Gun and ammo tax supporters say those costs include law enforcement programs and paying for the medical care of gunshot victims.

I already do pay the full cost of my firearms related activity. It’s called the PRICE I PAID WHEN I BOUGHT MY GUNS, AMMO, TARGETS, AND MEMBERSHIP TO MY GUN CLUB. Those “other costs” of which you speak have dick to do with me as I HAVEN’T FUCKING SHOT ANYONE. So if I don’t shoot anyone, WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I BE HELD FINANCIALLY LIABLE FOR CARING FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN SHOT? Don’t lop me in with criminals just because I own a gun, asshole.

2013-04-09  »  madlibertarianguy