Never mind that none of these political hacks would even consider taxing any other constitutional right.
Never mind that there’s zero evidence that any revenue collected from Tacoma taxing guns and ammo would make any difference in the city’s “gun violence” problem.
And never mind that, if the tax is imposed, Tacoma residents will just drive outside city limits to buy firearms and ammunition, just as they’re doing in Seattle (while driving the city’s gun stores out of business).
Tacoma’s proposed tax on guns and ammunition isn’t about results. It’s about DOING SOMETHING, feeling good about having done it, and using the “accomplishment” to get the politicians who vote for it reelected.
The push back ā and the gun lobby mobilization effort ā was expected.
To which I say: Tacoma, poke that bear.
Yes, I think the tax on firearms and ammo can potentially do some good, providing a small revenue source to pay for gun-violence prevention programming ā which canāt hurt.
Anything helps.
But you know what? Thereās another part of me thatās just so damn sick and tired of seeing the same tragedies ā and the same lame reactions, defenses and non-responses ā that Iām simply ready for the city to doĀ anythingĀ it can.
If that essentially amounts to a middle finger directed at the organized gun lobby ā whose sole mission at this point seems to be thwarting any and all common-sense gun regulation ā so be it.
Iām done with #ThoughtsAndPrayers. Iām over not āpoliticizingā senseless gun deaths. And Iām tired of watching the all-powerful gun lobby flex every time anywhere ā even a city the size of Tacoma ā tries to challenge it.
Over. It.
So Poke. Poke. Poke.
– Matt Driscoll in Let the gun lobby rant. Taxing firearms and ammunition sales in Tacoma is right thing
Um, I think the intended result is to… drive local gun stores out of business. Safety āfor the childrenā is NEVER the intended result of gun control.
Agreed. See San Francisco.
Exactly. I think the last one on San Fran closed a few years or decade ago?
It did, but for some reason has re-emerged and is still in business. SF imposed onerous licensing requirements, including the video taping of all transactions, limitations on the amount of ammo on site, increased security requirements, and so forth and so on. All were clearly intended to force the one and only store in the city out of business. Which it did, for a while. due to its early success, the SF representatives in the Legislature proposed bills that would have imposed the same requirements state wide, so far without success.
So, where do the politicians buy their guns and ammo?
It sure did close a few years ago…”BREAKING: Anti-Gun CA Senator Leland Yee Charged With Gun Running”
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/breaking-anti-gun-california-senator-leland-yee-charged-gun-running/
Back in the 70’s Massachusetts outlawed guns and if you got caught with one you were going to jail for 5 years minimum. Period! They changed their law after years of increased murders during home robberies. I think they went up by 500 percent. Made a lot of orphans but I guess you don’t care unless it’s a woman killing an unborn child because a baby would inconvenience her. Liberals are the most two sided hypocrites on the face of the earth. First you want to protect a child at the expense of the adult then you want to kill the child for the convenience of the adult. Which is it???
Here in the USA reducing violence and crime where guns are used is always the goal of gun control. It fails completely because it is a foolish idea. It lasts year after year, adding into decades and generations, because it becomes culturally ingrained in the fabric of a political doctrine. They truth is hard for proponents to see, if not impossible, because it has metastasized so completely over so very long a period that any connection to reality has been eclipsed by political dogma over a long period of time.
The belief in gun control as a solution to a problem is now a “Purity Test” for liberal politicians.
This is a truth in all political parties. Only the issues change, the names of the parties change. The existence of established dogma and party-acceptability or Purity Testing is now universal.
Enuf, please do a little, just a little, research. The stated gold is to disarm the American public. Problem is, only the law-abiding citizens will be disarmed and the criminal will still have their guns. In addition, please check the FBI stats. many more people are killed and/or injured by knives, hammers, and fist then by guns. However, guns can be used to resist a dictatorial government where the other items cannot. Nor, are they really suitable for self-defense. A hammer would be of little use for an older small man or woman for defending themselves against four or more attackers, It wouldn’t be all that useful against one, 20 something, attacker.
In award, NO, I am not willing to give up my God-given Right for the hope of additional safety.
“Here in the USA reducing violence and crime where guns are used is always the goal of gun control.”
I disagree, and I submit as evidence the NY SAFE Act. This law had exactly one goal, which was to make it harder to be a law-abiding gun-owner in NY State. Its ammunition and “assault rifle” provisions created criminals out of honest folk, and it has stopped precisely zero crimes. To my knowledge, it is only enforced through limits on what gun stores can sell, and occasionally when someone falls afoul of it in the commission of some other crime. In many areas of the state, it is not even enforced. In many areas of the state, gun owners simply don’t comply with it.
So the SAFE Act is provably ineffective at the goal of “reducing violence and crime,” but fortunately for its authors, it was never intended to be effective at this. Rifles, its main target, aren’t even used in more than a tiny handful of crimes. There is no compelling argument that fewer bullets can lessen the impact of crime, much less that having fewer bullets will make someone reconsider the commission of a crime.
The SAFE Act is only good at one thing, which is its intended goal: imposing obstacles, inconvenience, and expense on law-abiding owners (and would-be owners) of firearms. This is the goal of all such laws, including the law in San Francisco.
Politicians lie about wanting to prevent violence, just like they lie about everything else.
How is that poking going to end for freedom seekers in Hong Kong?
Mass televised live organ harvesting is in their future…..but……but….no one needs an AR 15!
NOT GOING ALONG! Period!!!!
How about this……… we try some live organ harvesting of American traitor politicians and beaureocraps?………or………Iām OK with their heads on pikes.
Persons (such as ANY PUBLIC OFFICIAL) who take an oath to uphold and defend the constitution and then work actively to gut and destroy it should be SHOT FOR TREASON. Expedited.
We had a preview back in 1989 watching the Tiananmen Square protests of what’s in store for HK.
“Thereās another part of me thatās just so damn sick and tired of seeing the same tragedies ā and the same lame reactions, defenses and non-responses ā that Iām simply ready for the city to do anything it can.”
Well, then, why keep doing things that have been demonstrated to not help the problems you say you are concerned about? Taxation, banning, confiscation … it’s all been done before, and it never does what the pols say it will.
Of course, if you don’t really care about the problems you’re complaining about, but just want to get rid of guns in good citizens’ hands, this is an effective approach. Right up to the time said citizens say “Enough! No more.”
Pretty much my response to this guy. None of these gun-control proponents can ever point to any sort of linkage between their proposed measures and the crime and violence they say they seek to reduce. I’ve asked many people, when they propose some silly limitation on the manufacture, sale or possession of firearms, how exactly their idea will reduce crime and how exactly it will be implemented and they never have a meaningful answer. On those few occasions when I’m not simply accused by one of these harpies of being a shill for murderers and terrorists, I tell them that if they can establish for me a meaningful link between the number of guns in private hands and the rate of violent crime then we might have the basis for a discussion. Most never bring it up again and I figure that is either because their ideological bias will not allow them to even look at the data or, if they do take a minute to look, they realize that reality is at odds with their assertions.
At least this guy is somewhat honest in that he admits he’s willing to support legislation just to flip the bird to some people he dislikes. How can there be resistance to such a compelling proposition.
The “we have to do something”, cries make no more sense than someone demanding a mechanic replace the windshield, or the tires, or the left front fender, to solve the problem of their car not starting.
It’s all about punishing people that think differently than you, and as a bonus, government funding left wing political activism.
And I’m sure the gang bangers, pantifa and other criminals will be taxed too.
Right, right?
“pantifa”… LoL!
Is this the guy doing the writing?
Matthew Driscoll – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Driscoll
Matthew John Driscoll (born February 7, 1958) is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation from 2015 until 2017. He served as the 52nd Mayor of Syracuse, New York from July 10, 2001, until December 31, 2009.
He continues to be a democrat hack.
Driscoll was also a member of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition (the Bloomburg-sponsored group). And he still remains a Democratic hack – only worse! From what I saw (on Wiki) about his spotty political career, it would seem that he must now write (badly) for a living until his next opportunity for political office comes along.
No real job to speak off.
Not the same guy. Matt Driscoll is a duffus columnist (communist?) at the local fish wrap Tacoma News Tribune – a failing an useless local news rag.
They got the message with Google. The company stopped construction on their new HQ building. They, the socialists, were forced to withdraw the new employee tax. But Google got the message also. They are not going to expand the business in washington state.
The gun business is not as large as google. So they don’t care if the gun stores close and leave town. But you can still have a pride parade have sex in public, defecate in public and shoot up crystal meth in public to improve your sexual experience. It’s all government supported.
But NO support for civil rights.
Tacamoa Seattle, and Portland are well on their way to becoming San Francisco, and San Francisco is well on its way to becoming Detroit.
Democrats are incapable of learning, and the outcome is always the same. Once they control a place, they turn the shit up to ten and the taxes up to eleven; as a result the tax base flees and only the takers remain.
Please name a gun violence prevention program run by the government that has worked? Concealed carry comes to mind, but it works because of the people, not the government
Gorshš! They have a boo-lit tax in Cook county,ILL. And a $25 slush er “gun violence” tax on new handguns. And all it’s done is killed Cook county gun shops and enriched Indiana shops.In fact Borderline Shooting Sports in Steger,ILL advertises “no Cook county tax”. No problem for me. I have a car & mobility. Problem for poor Chiraq & southern Cook county residents. It’s a Dumbocrat featureš
As long as we bring back and link the poll tax along with the gun and ammo tax, I’m okay with it. But no poll tax, no specific taxes for guns and ammo.
Of course some folk might figure out they can charge $500K tax per election to vote and figure that’s cheaper than what they spending on lobbying, so there’d need to be some low upper ceilings . . . .
…pay for gun violence prevention programs.
Sure. Tell me another one. Unless it pays for executions that is.
Lol…the gun folks started all this by loving up the PR tax. I say go ahead. Make it a 100% tax. The gun community deserves it. F em.
Don’t think I would use that analogy.
People with this attitude often end up getting eaten.
āTo fund research into the causes of drunk driving we will be adding a $1250 fee to the purchase of every vehicle sold in the city.ā
I mean, gee whiz, itās common sense, right š
…In addition to an approximately $12.50 fee added to a modestly priced 1.75L bottle of liquor. (volume tax: $6.60 + spirits sales tax: 20.5%)
“Never mind that thereās zero evidence that any revenue collected from Tacoma taxing guns and ammo would make any difference in the cityās āgun violenceā problem.”
Tacoma’s problem is not violent firearms but rather a criminal problem using firearms to commit violence.
We know that. They know that. It’s the useful idiots that don’t. Which is why they’re useful to anti’s.
If Mr.Driscoll is willing to accept, and perhaps even live under a regime of a “city doing anything it can”, no matter how legally questionably, no matter how just plain dumb, may he have a long, happy, healthy life therein. A great many people, likely millions, disagree with him, with very good reason too.
Firearms are already “taxed”, not only by the “Robertson-Pittman Act” at 11% but by the illegal and unconstitutional “National Firearms Act” of 1934.
The “National Firearms Act” could be ruled unconstitutional on a “cruel and unusual punishment” basis. Imprisoning someone for 10 years and the imposition of a $10,000 fine for failing to pay a $200 “tax” could be construed as “cruel and unusual” punishment, and as such, unconstitutional on its face.
Then there are the state and local sales taxes. The income taxes paid by the companies and employees who manufacturer the firearms and ammunition. By time you actually walk out the door, at least half the purchase cost is taxes.
This idea that the people need guns is obsolete. The police and army will protect you. Like in Mexico.
Well, Beto pretty clearly wants the US to be a whole lot more like Mexico.
With him as “El Jefe”, until the Zetas take over.
Girls just wanna have fun and Zetas just want to skateboard.
Apparently.
The issue is people, not machines and tools. He’ll the people with problems, issues, who are in distress. That’s work, it’s hard. But it is the solution.
How come we never see any stats on how many felons are arrested for having a firearm? To answer my own question, it is probably because it shows how ineffectual gun laws are. Gee, I want to go shoot up the mall tonight, oh snap, it is illegal for me to have this gun I stole from FBI guy’s trunk. Guess I better pass cause I sure don’t want to break any laws. How lame are these people anyway to think we are lame enough to believe a word they say. I mean we ain’t, right?
I was wondering why the media never says “the gang members had to surrender their conceal carry permits” after the shoot-out in the street.
GOT DAM O’DRISCOLLS
Tax the hell out of it, why not. Thinking what isnt taxed, the air, thats it. Once we get moved to Mars tax the air too. ,,,,,,. ,,,, , I wonder how far a bullet would fly in deep space, probably forevee?
Tacoma and Driscoll are just reaching for straws and playing the political game of do anything so we can say we did something in behalf of the people and for the people. But, in reality they are just traveling down the same road all the other anti-gunners are with blinders on. They fail to isolate and analyze the problem for the root cause. What they fail to see and or understand is that the shooter is the cause of the incident, now why is that? Because politicians and avid anti-gunners want a fast fix to a social problem for theirs is a desire to overlook the drug problem, alcoholism, mental problems, a fear of getting involved when someone needs help, a failure of the education system to teach critical thinking, and failing a student when he/she does not meet the passing standard, single parent homes, etc.
The institution of new rules/laws to restrict the purchase of weapons, ammunition, etc, will not help. There are already many laws and procedures which make sure a person who not allowed to purchase doesn’t. It is the system an the city and state which does not apprehend and prosecute the person who attempted to purchase a weapon but was denied by the background check run on every person applying wishing to purchase a weapon. The felons and others who cannot legally purchase obtain their weapons by a ‘straw purchase’ (someone buys it for them), steals the weapon, or purchases one on the black market.
” the organized gun lobby ā whose sole mission at this point seems to be thwarting any and all common-sense gun regulation ”
About as untrue as it can ever get. The “gun lobby” (that’s us) is not trying to thwart common-sense gun regulation. We’re all for it– the problem here is that no one has suggested, proposed, or enacted any gun regulations that qualify as “common-sense”. So, don’t blame us– if anyone out there wants some common-sense gun regulations, well then, come up with some.
We already have a “common sense” arms law: The Second Amendment.
Unfortunately, too many citizens have lost “common sense”, governments are operating in violation of this law, and the Supreme Court has been lax in enforcing it.
Instead of increasing taxes on lawful citizens exercising their 2A Rights they should:
Write a Law directing: When a criminal is convicted the Courts/Judges must impose additional Fines and Penalties to cover crime victim costs for crimes this Felon didn’t commit. Make those who get convicted pay for those that have not been caught. That’s Fair, Right? Think the Courts or ALCU would have a problem with that?
If Lawmakers have no problems making innocent gun/ammo purchasers pay for the expenses of criminal acts than it should be just as fair for convicted criminals to pay Fines for other criminals actions.
Jump on that Socialist/Left/Dems. Take all their assets and those of family members too. No need for “Fair Play” here when you can’t demonstrate it. With gun owners.
I can dig blazer .45 ACP at $16.99. Cheap brass? Iām in. 26.99 for a pound of red dot? Nope. Got it anyway because I canāt get Alliant powders in my neck of the woods. My point, I would leave an oppressive date for one that lets me have the freedom to enjoy my hobbies, not label those like me terrorists, and tax me out of existence because they only want pools and billionaires. Also, you can get gas in McAlester for $2.13.
PittmanāRobertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittman%E2%80%93Robertson_Federal_Aid_in_Wildlife_Restoration_Act
So as of 2010, nearly a decade ago, the buying of guns and ammunition had moved $2 Billion in Federal taxes and $500 million in State matching funds into Wildlife Conservation. That’s habitat, protecting endangered species, building water catchments, buying up suitable land, restoring critters to ranges that had long been without, a huge amount of work.
And every single American benefits whether they are gun and ammo buyers or not.
Seems to me we’ve been doing more than most on this issue.
So in the words of GHW Bush the Elder, “Read my lips, no new taxes!”
“Anything helps.
So Poke. Poke. Poke.”
Glad someone’s properly servicing my wife.
Liberalism is the quick slide to communism also known as nazi. The only reason who Jews were exterminated was because they gave up their guns. Hitler propagated the premise that yield your defences and trust the government. The conservatives, who have never committed a mass murder, have probably 550 million guns and estimated 12 trillion rounds of ammo. Only crazies propagate violence unless provoked. Stop poking the patriot with your lunacy. The real assault weapon is your hatred for our constitutional republic!
āConstitutional rightā….so many still donāt get it. Thatās why weāll eventfully lose this.
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