My first bill of the 2020 session is a proposal to increase funds for gun violence prevention & reduction efforts in CT cities by establishing a 35% excise tax on ammunition. #gunsense #enough pic.twitter.com/SGa9eSeHLg
— Jillian Gilchrest (@Jilchrest) February 10, 2020
Last year, Connecticut State Rep. Jillian Gilchrest proposed a 50% ammunition tax, but that went down in flames. So this year, she’s giving it another try at a mere 35% rate.
Because exactly this kind of thing has worked so well in Seattle. The tax is sold with plenty of pie in the sky revenue projections of money that will be used to fund bogus “gun violence” prevention programs. But somehow those pots of cash never seem to materialize.
Why? Because gun owners will go to great lengths, including driving across state lines, to avoid the confiscatory tax.
“As I’ve traveled the state learning about gun violence prevention I’ve met with amazing individuals and organizations who are doing tremendous work in Connecticut’s cities to prevent gun violence,” [State Rep. Jillian] Gilchrest said in a video posted to her Twitter account. “This includes folks who show up to the hospital after a shooting has occurred, folks who are working with children who are impacted by gun violence, those working with mothers who are experiencing the pain of losing a loved one and folks who intervene right on the street to prevent gun violence before it occurs.
“But what I’ve found time and again is that these programs are woefully underfunded. … I think it’s time that we invest in these programs that can prevent gun violence in our cities and make our state safer.”
– Russel Blair in Connecticut lawmaker proposes 35% tax on ammunition sales to fund gun violence prevention
Gilchrest:
“I want to punish the people who don’t vote for me so I can pretend I am giving money to the people who do vote for me.”
^^ This. Right here. ^^
I’m sure she performed studies and did some serious number crunching to come up with these tax rates. She also carefully considered any and all potential downsides to the proposal. She totally didn’t just pull it out of her a$$.
Pity the Cabela’s in East Hartford is actually well laid out and stocked. For larger purchases on ammo I usually go to New Hampshire or Delaware but it is nice to explore when we get a chance.
Go to the head of the class!
Another (comb-over) Karen for Tyranny.
Onto her proposed bill a rider should be attached, that proposes a 35% Access Tax to enter an abortion clinic to fund ‘Violence Toward Children Prevention’.
Try a 35% tax on each Liberal kid to fund Defective Citizen Violence research. It’s not gun violence; it’s Defective Citizen Violence.
Well, if government is just a protection racket, make sure it’s your guys who get in.
Buying votes with other peoples money is the Democrat way.
Why? Because gun owners will go to great lengths, including driving across state lines, to avoid the confiscatory tax.
It’s Connecticut, you would have to drive to where, New Hampshire, Maine, Pennnsylvania to save a couple bucks? Better to just fight it, 50% failed, 35% fails where does she stop? I thought it was illegal to place a tax on a particular group of people…
You assume they see gun owners as people.
They will fight it (again) but grinding attrition is a bitch to combat long term. Also you would be surprised how much you can save in New Hampshire especially if you call ahead for bulk orders. No sales tax paired with no punitive fun tax adds up quickly.
No comprehensive with these people ever, they must be fought at every turn. I’m sick and tired of being the boogie man. If these clowns want funding they should start by donating their own salaries. They don’t even know what they don’t know, but they’re more than happy to tell us what we need to do and pay for. I’m starting to
come around to the Powerserge point of view, 3 minute helicopter rides and brick walls for these traitor’s.
“No comprehensive with these people…”
You mean “compromise”?
Most of us, uneducated dummies, understood.
“boogie man”
Bogeyman?
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/bogeyman
““boogie man””
“Bogeyman?”
The ‘Baba Yaga’, AKA, Jardani Jovonovich, “The bad-boy from Belarus”… 😉
I can’t wait to see “The Adjudicator” show up in a porno… 🙂
You’re a sick puppy Geof. However, if you are still so ‘non-binary’ inclined, your Adjudicator had a “sex scene” on the show ‘Billions’.
To everyone else besides Geof, it is not a recommended watch.
Man, I had a flashback to one of the early scenes in the original Halloween movie where the generic bullys were picking on Timmy and smashed his pumpkin. Boogieman, Boogieman!
Likely says something about me…
“You’re a sick puppy Geof.”
Uhhhhmmm…
And? 🙂
(She *claims* to be non-binary, but is in a relationship with a male. At this point, she’s likely just “fashionably’ bi, so she can hang with the Hollywood “Cool Kids”. Oh, and I wouldn’t mind a throw with “Accounts Receivable”, fake tats and all… 😉 )
“To everyone else besides Geof, it is not a recommended watch.”
It could have been a *lot* better, the ‘jump’ from NYC to Morocco and back was clumsy as hell, but the puppies stepped up to the plate. We’ll see in “Chapter 4”, since that’s how the arc appears to be bending…
Makes me think of the Rob Zombie cover to K.C. & The Sunshine Band’s “I’m Your Boogie Man”.
Cellphone auto correct. It would have been edited except that this is TTAG and if you don’t check certain blocks before posting, tough luck for you. Sure glad you signed with the grammar police. Keep up the good work.
Capt. Haz, Grammar Division, reporting for duty. Here to make a difference in the community.
So all the mostly regular folks in the northern, eastern and western parts of the state get to literally pay for the constant crimes of the irregular people in the central and southern parts of the state.
Seems fair.
I’m from Chicago… Get used to it!
I think we need a Constitutional amendment named after the “Laffer Curve”.
Governments have an implicit – if not explicit – power to tax. There is no way around this fact. But the purpose of a tax is to raise revenue, not to implement some policy that a legislature deems worthwhile. Think about that. Do we really want legislatures to impose “sin taxes”?
A teetotaling smoker wants to tax alcohol but not tobacco. A non-smoking drinker wants the reverse. Do we really desire that they engage in a political battle to resolve their differences?
There is no easy or perfect solution to the dilemma I’ve presented. Yet, there IS a solution that would mitigate the very worst abuses (such as the $200 transfer tax on silencers).
If the nation could reach a consensus that taxes are for revenue then any “tax” that doesn’t produce revenue is NOT a legitimate use of the taxing power. It is merely “politics by other means”.
The economist Arthur Laffer popularized a fundamental idea found in the Federalist Papers. Basically, the idea is that if you tax something at a high enough rate that something, whatever it is, will cease to be found in ordinary commerce available to be taxed. It will disappear entirely or be hidden. A 100% income tax will produce no revenue; as would a 99% or 98% tax.
The problem can be depicted by a curve. At some point on the curve of tax rates vs revenue, raising the rate of tax will reduce revenue from the tax!
A “Laffer Tax” amendment would declare any rate of tax UN-Constitutional if it is so high that it produces LESS revenue than the tax would produce at a LOWER rate. It would be incumbent on government to prove that it’s rate of taxation is NOT higher than the rate which would produce the maximum amount of revenue.
Thus, we PotG would be protected from legislative manipulations of (for example) the Robinson-Pitman excise tax on guns and ammunition.
Probably more importantly, state and municipal taxes would be heavily constrained by interstate tax evasion. A state/municipality might be able to raise revenue at a penny-a-round rate of tax; but, at some rate such as 10 cents a round, its residents would buy across state/municipal lines and tax revenues would plummet. It would be fairly easy to show that any such state/municipal tax was NOT revenue-generating, and thus, UN-Constitutional (under my proposal).
“The problem can be depicted by a curve. At some point on the curve of tax rates vs revenue, raising the rate of tax will reduce revenue from the tax!”
You mean my plan to raise sky high taxes on the billionaires, oligarchs, and multi-national corporations so I can fund unlimited free healthcare for illegal immigrants and unlimited free college education for everyone on the planet that wants it, will ultimately fail? Next I suppose you’re going to tell me the world won’t end if temperatures increase another 2 degrees! That’s crazy talk!
“If the nation could reach a consensus that taxes are for revenue then any “tax” that doesn’t produce revenue is NOT a legitimate use of the taxing power. It is merely “politics by other means”.
^^This^^ Everything we need to know about taxes, in a nutshell right here.
That just opens door wide-ass open for the “Pittman Act” to be “updated” by the Leftists.
Think about it – If all they did was tax modern smokeless powders several thousand percent…
I guess it’s *possible* to leave black powder alone and claim they “Respect the 2A” by not taxing it, and .38 SPL was originally a BP load (including .22 long & friends)… But is that how we wanna live?
Counter argument:
Natural and/or constitutionally-protected rights should not be taxed. If we cannot tax free speech or worship, or voting booths, or other rights, then the taxation of arms is wrong as well.
The problem with the curve is that it is too vulnerable to someone fiddling with numbers and projections. Just make it simpler.
You can have a sales tax. You cannot have a sales tax that is higher on one thing than another just because you call it a ‘luxury’ or whatever.
Simple.
https://twitter.com/Jilchrest=PhuckFace!
Got a better idea, PROSECUTE criminals! Yeah I know, doesnt jive with your agenda. Remember in November!
Not a thing she said would lower gun use violence. She intends to give victim support groups cash….which they already have but I am sure would gladly accept more to be absorbed by management and contractor costs….nothing going to victims.
She intends to give victim support groups cash…
Wonder which “victim support group” she runs… “FOLLOW THE MONEY”..
In other words, she want to give money to groups that tend to be politically active. And they just happen to be on the same side of the political fence as her. Things that make you go hmm…
That’s an 8 head not a forehead lol!
Nice comb-over!
Yeah, because it’s not like you can drive an hour in any direction and buy it in a different state! That goes for anywhere in NE.
A gun shop selling ammo by the case might do pretty well in Matamoras, PA. Only a little over an hour from Danbury, CT.
Call ahead and most shops are very willing to do bulk business.
Eventually, the Ct state officials would close down that store like government thugs did to some liquor stores in nebraska. The town would sell alcohol to the reservation Indians, who would come over from South Dakota. The Indians were not capable of being civilized with alcohol locally available, kind of like the low income black and brown skinned folks can’t behave civilized with gun stores around, like this article is about.
Apparently, among her claims to fame, she’s helped push through a ban on plastic bags and mandatory licensing of “eyelash technicians.”
So yeah, I’m not surprised she thinks she can solve “gun violence” (you have NO idea how much I hate that term) by taxing law-abiding citizens some more.
Typical leftist “compromise.” She wasn’t able to drop a whole turd in our punch bowl, so her counter-offer is to pinch off half a turd (70% of a turd, actually). If this doesn’t work, maybe she will be supremely magnanimous and offer to drop just 25% of a turd.
No matter the % it still stinks!!
^
Plus, you know they already plan to come back and drop the rest later.
Now or later, it’s all diarrhea!
Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 666 (1966)
This principle applies with equal force to the right to keep and bear arms.
Want to see her head explode? Propose a $1000 tax on abortions to support adoption services.
Now you are just talkin crazy. Of the 900,000+ legal abortions in the US roughly half are females. Since Jillian supports a woman’s right to choose and women’s rights in general, it could only be $500 or $1,000 per male child. You wouldn’t want her to tax killing unborn females, that would go against her beliefs.
Maybe we should introduce a bill taxing Politicians. If “we all pay for gun violence” why not tax everyone? Why not tax people who buy books or use the public library an extra 35% to help drop outs have a better life. Why not tax car owners to help people living on the street without cars? Here’s a novel idea, why not add a 35% penalty tax on the prison sustenance of a person who uses a gun in a crime? Stat with a ball & chain and have them pick up trash two days a week. Then have them perform some other function that directly pays their victim’s family for three days a week. Let them have Sunday off to rest.
This is another idiot trying to do a ‘feel good’ tax on others so she can say she did something. Why do people arrest morons like this? Because they tax other people and they can feel good about that as well.
S.C.O.T.U.S. has been quite clear on this issue. States may not impose a tax that in any way would diminish the exercise of a right secured by the Constitution of the United States.
Has that stopped lower-court judges?
Am sure that it has for those ruling according to valid precedent. Otherwise it leaves the perfect opening for appeal.
The point here is less harm, right?
How about a voluntary “Check this box to donate $1.00.”, or “Round your purchase up to donate?” on ammo purchases, right at the register. Goes to fund safety training n range day programs run by shooting interest orgs.
You wanna do “good work” n make people safer, have them learn how guns actually are, n the 4 rules.
Guns only go off if you operate them just right, n throw their output so precisely it’s measured in single inches, a football field away. If somebody got shot, somebody meant to throw a bullet there.
A few 100,000,000 guns n even more shots taken never harm anyone. Maybe work on the shooter’s choices.
Wasn’t there an advocacy n training org that did this back in the day?
Jim. No, the point here is a form of reparations, and the conservative naivity that all cultures are equal. I carry sidearms to keep low income minorities away from my wife and kids, and I will not be forced by the state to pay extra on my ammo or guns to pay for low income minorities continued presence. I already pay sales tax that is used to lower the quality of life in a formerly all White city, inorder to be equal with the new imports.
Buy a reloading machine.
Quickly becoming a very sensible decision up here.
Is the tax limited to factory ammunition or does it include reloading supplies, too?
They will probably look closely at that, when they got all stupid with the cigarette taxes they left out cigars (because why tax themselves) and roll your own because they just didn’t think of it…… Maybe this time they’ll throw in gunpowder also…
We HAVE a Cook county ammo tax. I drive to nearby Indiana and get all my ammo there. Or Will county…I don’t participate in the slush fund!😏
The tax does not exist to raise revenue. It exists to drive gun shops out of Cook. Don’t think for a second that there is any other plan involved.
My local Cook shops suck pretty bad…ie Pelchers,Posen(mainly a gun range), and especially Glenwood(dunno if they sell guns anymore). Arrogance abounds. As if I can’t travel. Chucks is OK but insanely priced. They’re also besieiged by a-hole’s like that fool who was on here last week from Brady claiming he “saw the light”😩 There’s other’s but they are never accessible. Cry me a river. They sucked before any “tax”.
Doesn’t anyone realize by now that the DemoCommies in most of these states. (Re: CT, MA, NY, NJ,CA, etc…) Have conned every one out of there 2nd Amendment rights!? Made it privilege, put it behind a paywall, placed state moderators (police/STASI) in charge of a may issue privilege….HOW MUCH MORE EVIDENCE IS NEEDED TO SHOW TYRANNY?!!!
I expect some of the “children who are impacted by gun violence” and “mothers who are experiencing the pain of losing a loved one” are the relatives of violent criminals shot by their victims in self defense. I’m sure she disapproves of “folks who intervene right on the street to prevent gun violence before it occurs” by shooting such criminals.
What percentage of the taxed rounds will be used in actual “gun violence?” Say I buy $100 in ammo a month. I will now pay an extra $35 tax. So $420 a year extra tax. And I will cause zero gun violence. This should be called an “ammunition mandatory liberal causes donation.”
How about this idea: 35% bail/court fees tax on violent gun offenders and those committing gun crimes- stealing guns, prohibited persons in possession, people using guns in a crime.
Can’t you buy ammo by mail in CT? Often the companies will even pay shipping on larger orders.
You don’t need a lot of money for the kind of programs the representative is talking about. You DO need a lot of money for the kind of ‘anti-violence programs’ that get created to spend money- usually to “former” gang members who call themselves ‘conflict interrupters’ or something until they get thrown in prison for another 1st degree assault .
And what is this nonsense anyway? CT’s tax burden is one of the highest in the nations and it’s not like they’re dealing with having a chicago or baltimore in the state. It’s almost as if this has nothing to do with crime and everything to do with attacking hobbies involving guns.
From somewhere in the 1930’s, I Believe, there has been a Federal 10-15% tax on guns and ammo. It’s called”The Pittman-Robertson Act,” and was passed at the request of Sportsmen-Hunters. That money goes to funding projecr5s to support hunting. It also helps to fund Hunter Safety programs, and State Forests and State Parks
I will bet “dollars to donuts” that there has been a net loss to Washington State due to their new tax law. — Drive people to other places, and reduce those P-R funds. — They are based on population & usage.
This also means less $ coming in for public Rec.& Parks usage. [Either close some parks or start increasing admission fees.]
Great going you STUPID Politicians. Pass a “feel good/do nothing law,” and everybody loses.
It’s worth it, (according to her) if it hurts YOU and what you represent…
Leftists (Democrats) are truly mentally ill when it comes to taxes. First, they use taxes to punish activities they don’t like (want to suppress). Then they tell us increased income taxes (taxing wealth) will boost the economy. Conclusion? Taxes are a magic pill for the nation.
So, she’s proposing a tax on ammunition to fund law enforcement is what it comes down to. There’s no way revenue from such a tax could ever be credibly applied to something that can’t be measured. Gun violence prevention means enforcing the law. Aren’t the citizens of CT already paying for such an effort? This would simply add income to the state’s coffers without making any appreciable difference in what she thinks it would. Silly.
I can think of 2 or 3 ways she could raise revenue.
Crook County Illinois put a .05 tax per round… The stores can’t give the stuff away. We goes elsewhere to get ammo…. The county can EAT IT….
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