Seattle is Ready to Tax Guns and Bullets

Eye on the News: Seattle is ready to tax guns and bullets

From a site that says “grab a gun online.”

The City Council unanimously passed a special tax and the mayor signaled his support for the measure.

The new law will impose a $25 tax on guns and a 5-cent tax on bullets sold within the city limits. Lawmakers called it a “gun violence tax” because proceeds would be used for prevention and research programs to reduce gun violence in Seattle.

The law is based on a similar $25 gun tax that passed in Cook County, Illinois, in 2013. The Seattle budget office estimates the law will raise $300,000 to $500,000 a year.

Seattle estimates that direct medical costs from gunshot wounds totaled $17 million last year, with taxpayers picking up $12 million of the costs. The Urban Institute estimated that gun violence costs U.S. taxpayers $500 million a year.

The Seattle law also requires mandatory reporting on lost or stolen guns.

C.A.S.H. COMMENTS:

This tax on guns is sorely needed.  However, to get to the source of the problem, wildlife management agencies must be forced out of the hunting business.  These agencies profit from the sale of handguns and ammunition used in crime in the cities.

That dedicated excise tax on all firearms and ammunition (police and military excluded) goes to the Conservation Fund to promote more use of firearms by creating hunting opportunities and living targets for hunters.

The funds should instead be used for the health care and funerals of people who have become victims of gun violence.

Not only would that be fair, but it would deplete the funding of wildlife management and force them to rely on a kinder form of management, such as wildlife watching.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/11/news/economy/seattle-gun-tax/