A "violence tax" for law-abiding citizens

Violence Tax On Guns And Ammunition Could Be Headed To Chicago

Inquisitr.com:  A so-called “violence tax” on firearms and ammunition could be headed to the Chicago area, courtesy of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, adding such a tax to gun sales is move by the local government to control the number of weapons that find their way onto the city streets. However, a National Rifle Association lobbyist believes there’s something more sinister at work.

“This is just another example of the blame game — Chicago and Cook County has a gun violence problem, Chicago’s got a high high school drop-out rate, they’ve got a drug problem, they’ve got a gang problem, but they want to make legal gun owners, guys like me, the scapegoat,” Springfield, Illinois NRA lobbyist Todd Vandermyde explained. As far as he’s concerned, the only thing this tax will do is hurt the poor. “All you’re doing is jacking up the price of guns and ammunition — for someone who can least afford it,” Vandermyde said. “The problem with something like this is that you’re hurting people who don’t have the ability to get out of Cook County. So if you have someone in Englewood, they have to venture out to DuPage County, to Will County? I don’t think so.”

Taxing law-abiding gun owners.

According to NBC News, the violence tax would essentially make guns and ammo more expensive to purchase. However, Preckwinkle hasn’t said just how much more these items will cost when and if the tax is applied. Regardless of how much more the weapons will run, Kurt Summers, Preckwinkle’s chief of staff, explained that something must be done in order to curb the violence that plagued Chicago over the summer.

A recent report revealed that the big city’s murder rate is up nearly 25 percent, a number that has alarmed officials. What’s more, Cook County Jail is almost at capacity; nearly 9,000 inmates are currently housed at a facility designed to hold 10,000.

In addition to reducing the number of guns on the street, the proposed violence tax would help fill the $115 million hole that currently rests in the city’s budget. Enforcing laws and treating gunshot victims has a price, and it’s reportedly taking its toll on Chicago. “It impacts law enforcement, both at the city and the county [levels]. It impacts the courtrooms, the public defender and state’s attorney that are in there, the judges that are in there, the clerk of the court that has to sit there, the sheriff’s deputies that are in that courtroom and it impacts the jail — the folks that are sitting there at $143 a day,” Summers explained.

Something must be done to address gun violence?  Let’s tax it and that solve the solution!  According to the National Institute of Justice:

Initially, firearms violence intervention and research focused on either reducing the demand for illegal guns or reducing their supply. More than 20 years of intervention programs, however, have shown that a single approach is not likely to work. To reduce gun violence, a sustained program that addresses both demand and supply is needed. A successful intervention will have elements of federal-local law enforcement collaboration, community involvement, targeted intervention tactics and continuous program evaluation.

What better way to reduce demand than to make it more expensive, even for law-abiding citizens.  Penalizing those not committing crimes is just wrong.  And I doubt those committing crimes will be persuaded by this – they already don’t follow the laws and will probably just end up stealing ammunition and guns from homes/stores. Typical liberal solution: a new tax to come up with a way to patch the $115 million budget hole that ultimately won’t have any major impact on gun violence.

DCG