Mr. Conservative – by Kristin Tate
Tax this! Tax that! Tax…. gun ammo?
The California Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee recently approved a measure called AB 187, which puts a 10 percent tax on all ammunition sold in the state. Gee, and I thought California’s high tax and anti-gun policies couldn’t get any worse.
Assemblymen Rob Bonta and Roger Dickinson support the bill. Both are Democrats. Shocking.
They say that the new revenue will help cities that have high gun violence. “Cities throughout the state, including Oakland, are suffering horrific and increasing gun violence. AB 187 will provide the City of Oakland, and cities in similar circumstances, with sufficient street-level public safety presence to prevent gun violence and attend to it when it does occur,” said Bonta.
Nonsense.
Taxing law-abiding citizens’ ammunition will not curtail gun violence. It will now be more expensive for innocent people to defend themselves against armed criminals. AB 187 only makes criminals, who do not follow laws to begin with, more likely to buy ammunition on the black market to avoid the tax.
California legislators are also currently pushing bills that would let officials in Oakland draft stronger gun control laws, in order to “combat violence”. The thought that this would be effective is laughable. If gun control worked, Chicago would be the safest city in the country. Despite a history of strict gun policies, the Windy City is one of the nation’s most violent and deadly cities.
AB 187 would also fund new mental healthcare services for children in California. “Screening young children for signs of mental illness and addressing any issues early on is the key to a healthier and more productive adult life,” Assemblyman Dickinson said. “A limited tax on ammunition is a small price to pay for better mental healthcare for kids, reduced crime, and safer communities statewide.”
Hey Dickinson, instead of creating new taxes to pay for these important services, how about you stop the out-of-control spending on unnecessary, absurd programs in your state? A few of the (many, many) examples of waste:
-$200,000 was spent on “a tattoo removal program” in Mission Hills, California.
-$3 million was given to researchers at the University of California at Irvine to fund their research on video games such as World of Warcraft. Sounds like a pretty sweet “research job”.
AB 187 is an addition to Dickinson’s AB 760, which would impose a five cent tax on every round of ammunition sold in California. The tax itself is more expensive than the actual bullets.
California politicians are out of control. They irresponsibly spend their cities into bankruptcy, and then attempt to fix the problem by burdening law-abiding gun owners with new taxes.
The assail on gun owners across the country has become absurd and offensive. Just earlier this week aSecond Amendment supporter was thrown out of a meeting in New Jersey for criticizing gun control. And yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden wrote a letter to a child, saying guns are bad so “use chocolate bullets“.
Where does it all end?
Written by Kristin Tate.
Follow Kristin on Twitter @KristinBTate.
Handloading….is the answer.
Those lunatics in Sacramento are not just out of control they are criminally insane. Any Americans in California that actually works for a living should get out of that state while they still can.
Now you know why I moved the hell out of CA…..hey hell, CA is not even an American state any longer.
If the ammo tax were for the use of those being shot for hospital bills I would say ok……..but……..it will go for the salary of those who make the laws and many stupid things.
V
How would they be able to tax home cast bullets, re-used cases, with primers and powder bought out-of-state, say in Oregon or Nevada, or even Mexico? A whole years’ supply of powder and primers will fit in a modest sized shopping bag, and be swallowed up by the average SUV.
Does the new law make it a crime to handload?
I’d like to see what the US Supreme Court has to say about criminalizing handloading.
For many years we have been conditioned to accept the “agricultural inspection stations” at California borders. We politely answered the “Any fresh fruits or vegetables?” question. Soon the question will be “Any guns or ammunition?” and we will all know that we are no longer in the United States. And don’t think a simple “No” will be accepted if they suspect otherwise — they WILL search your car. Add to that license plate reading technology, which can connect the registration in your name to anything in the NSA database that has you discussing firearms or ammunition on the phone or even in this From the Trenches forum. We are being slowly placed under lockdown, boiling-frog style.
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.
NOT more taxes.
If you divide the country and put liberals in 1 half and conservatives in the other, it won’t take long for the liberals to starve to death without the tax dollars of the conservatives.
Now’s a good time to do an experiment in CA. Leave it entirely to the whack jobs and see how far it gets. They are already bankrupt as is let alone left entirely to the communists dictators who have trashed the place.
Actually, California is not bankrupt – far from it as there are billions and billions hidden away in CAFR accounts. It’s an issue of wording: don’t be fooled by the phrase that there’s no money in the state budget, which is a cooked book itself intended to fool the public, while meantime billions in tax dollars continue to be added to the CAFR accounts.
Great: more money they’ll squander.
A RIGHT CANNOT BE TAXED!
“…It is a principle that the right to a thing gives a right to the means without which it could not be used, that is to say, that the means follow their end…. This principle is rounded in natural reasons, is evidenced by the common sense of mankind…”
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– Thomas Jefferson, March 18, 1792 [Official] letter to George Washington.[The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes. Federal Edition. Collected and Edited by Paul Leicester Ford.]
The claim and exercise of a Constitutional right cannot be converted into a crime.”
— Miller v. US, 230 F 486, at 489.
“No state shall convert a liberty into a privilege, license it, and attach a fee to it.”
— Miller v. U.S., U.S. Supreme Court,[319 U.S. 105 (1943).]
“If the state converts a liberty into a privilege the citizen can engage in the right with impunity”
— Shuttlesworth v Birmingham, U.S. Supreme Court,[394 U.S. 147 (1969).]
“The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted.
“A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the land, it is superseded thereby.
“No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.”
— 16th American Jurisprudence, 2nd Edition, Volume 16, Section 177.
“Constitutional Rights cannot be denied simply because of hostility to their assertions and exercise; vindication of conceded Constitutional Rights cannot be made dependent upon any theory that it is less expensive to deny them than to afford them.”
— Watson v. Memphis, 373 U.S. 526 (U.S. 1963)
“The maintenance of the right to bear arms is a most essential one to every free people and should not be whittled down by technical constructions.”
— State vs. Kerner, 181 N.C. 574, 107 S.E. 222, at 224 (1921)
“It is well settled that the Constitutional Rights protected from invasion by the police power, include Rights safeguarded both by express and implied prohibitions in the Constitutions.”
— Tiche vs. Osborne, 131 A. 60
“The power to tax the exercise of a privilege is the power to control and suppress its enjoyment…. A State may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a Right granted by the federal constitution….
The power to impose a license tax on the exercise of these freedoms is indeed as potent as the power of censorship which this Court has repeatedly struck down… a person cannot be compelled ‘to purchase, through a license fee or a license tax, the privilege freely granted by the Constitution.’
Thus it may not exact a license tax for the privilege of carrying on interstate commerce…. This tax is not a charge for the enjoyment of a privilege or benefit bestowed by the State. The privilege in question exists apart from State authority. It is guaranteed the People by the federal constitution.”
— Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105 (1943).
“The provision in the Constitution granting the right to all persons to bear arms is a limitation upon the power of the Legislature to enact any law to the contrary. The exercise of a right guaranteed by the Constitution cannot be made subject to the will of the sheriff.”
— People vs. Zerillo,[219 Mich. 635, 189 N.W. 927, at 928 (1922)]
“When any court violates the clean and unambiguous language of the constitution, a fraud is perpetrated and NO ONE is bound to obey it.”
— State v. Sutton,[Source: 63 Minn 167, 65 NW 262, 30 LRA 630]
“Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be NO rule making or legislation which would abrogate them.”
— Miranda vs. Arizona, U.S. Supreme Court, 384 US 436, 491,(1966)
“There can be no sanction or penalty imposed upon one because of this exercise of constitutional Rights.”
— Snerer vs. Cullen, 481 F. 946.
“We find it intolerable that one constitutional right should have to be surrendered in order to assert another.”
— Simmons v. U.S.,[390 US 389 (1968)]
Finally, there’s this:
The Fourteenth Article of Amendment, in part which states:
“Section 1. […] nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
ANY tax, upon whatever article in trade, MUST apply to ALL articles, regardless.