Democrat Congressman Wants 1000% Tax on AR-15 Style Rifles
The governments will receive an exception. THE GOVERNMENT. But for us lowly citizens? Nope!
You can laugh. I’m laughing because I know it’s all a bunch of hot air. At least for now until the Democrats cheat their way into a super-majority this November.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) just gave me another reason to add another AR-15 to my gun collection. Not that I need a reason since it’s my natural right to bear arms.
A 1,000% tax on AR-15 style semi-automatic rifles. A rifle that is only a .223 caliber.
You know, a weapon no one in their mind would ever bring into war.
Congress must act to prevent mass shootings.
I’m writing a bill to restrict the flow of weapons of war into American communities – including AR-15’s and high capacity magazines – that could bypass the filibuster and pass with just 50 votes in the Senate:https://t.co/dXFRFftYxu
— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) June 5, 2022
“We think that a 1,000% fee on assault weapons is just the kind of restrictive measure that creates enough fiscal impact to qualify for reconciliation,” Beyer said.
Beyer’s office told the Washington Examiner, “The legislation Rep. Beyer is drafting would impose a 1000% excise tax on the manufacturer, importer, or producer of items defined as ‘assault weapons’ using terms similar to those in Congressman Cicilline’s Assault Weapons Ban Act (which includes high capacity magazines).”
There are “exceptions for purchases by government entities (eg federal/state/local law enforcement or the U.S. military),” however.
“Because the budget reconciliation process is designed to encompass revenue measures, we believe this approach would be permissible under reconciliation without being removed by a Byrd Rule challenge, and therefore could win passage with a simple majority in the Senate.”
“Congress must act to prevent mass shootings. I’m writing a bill to restrict the flow of weapons of war into American communities – including AR-15’s and high capacity magazines – that could bypass the filibuster and pass with just 50 votes in the Senate,” he tweeted Sunday.
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Comments
Taxing the exercise of a right is infringement by proxy.
I don’t think there’s any proxy there. It’s a pretty direct infringement.
You think they care?
Cook Co. Illinois taxed guns and ammo. Last year the Illinois Supreme Court said you can’t do that, Cook Co. tinkered with the law and re-did it again.
Until someone stops a tyrant, they do what they wish.
Until you make it exceptionally painful to behave like a tyrant, they’ll never stop.
Not if the tax is reasonable, and genuinely aimed at raising revenue. Consider sales taxes on books and newspapers, for instance. But this proposal would clearly not be for revenue raising; its explicit purpose would be to induce people not to pay the tax, by not buying the product. Thus, in its sponsors’ ideal scenario, it would raise nothing at all. And of course the tax rate itself is punitive. According to Roberts’s 0bamacare decision, that you all love to talk sh*t about without having given it any serious thought, that is by definition not a tax but a penalty, and Congress calling it a tax doesn’t mean anything.
So, are you saying this “tax’ will qualify as de minimis?
No, of course not. How could you possibly read what I wrote and come to that conclusion?
I’m saying it will be deemed not a tax at all, but a penalty, and thus unconstitutional. The court has already established that it pays no attention to what congress calls something, but only to what a thing actually is.
I read it exactly as you intended but your choice of “structure” left a lot of room for misunderstanding for some readers so I specifically asked for clarification.
You provided it.
I concur
Carry on
Could you please explain where the ambiguity is? It seems clear to me, so I don’t understand how someone could misread it.
A small point: the caliber is ,223, not .233. 😉
If buying a rifle is a right like voting is a right, wouldn’t this tax be analogous to an illegal poll tax?
Precisely.
Voting is an enumerated right? Who knew?
This is, in fact, more egregious than a poll tax. This is a direct assault on a constitutionally protected right.
No.
First of all you seem to misunderstand the term “poll tax”. It has nothing to do with voting; it’s just a flat tax that every person has to pay. There’s nothing illegal about it.
Second, voting is not a constitutional right. It’s a right granted by the states, subject to certain conditions. One of the conditions is that whatever voting rights a state grants can’t depend on what taxes a person pays.
Third, there is no such thing as “analogous” here. Voting can’t be made contingent on tax payment, because the 24th amendment says so; every other right granted by a state can be, because there’s no amendment saying they can’t. Of course rights not granted by government, such as those protected by the 1st and 2nd amendments, can’t be made contingent on anything.
The fallacy in this response is encapsulated in the sneaky phrase, “right granted by a state.” Privileges can be granted by a state. Rights are inherent.
That is not true at all. The constitution explicitly refers multiple times to rights granted by the states, such as the right to vote.
There are also rights granted by the constitution, that are not at all preexisting or inherent, such as the right to trial by jury.
why would criminals be concerned about taxes?
Another Dim persecuting the poor and disadvantaged. Anyone surprised?
What a great idea! By making things illegal or increasing the price on the lawful market to be prohibitive we can have….. prohibition… wait… that didn’t work last time for alcohol and it’s not working in the drug war …maybe given all the govt experience at prohibition they’ll do a better job this time with firearms? /S
What a crock.
I bought a Springfield Armory Hellion today.
I’ve been putting off about $10.000 worth of guns. I stopped putting it off today
Ammo is next.
This part from the story is rich:
“the Beyer plan faces steep hurdles as well. Democrats are likely to be wary that Republicans would further cast them as tax-and-spend liberals in an election year in which the party faces major headwinds to keep control of Congress.”
OMG…Insert face palm here.
Yeah. That’s the main hurdle.
Tax and spend liberals.
It will be interesting to see the language of the proposal. It wouldn’t surprise me if they screw it up, and only apply it to completed builds. If so, the construction market is going to absolutely take off, and once the genie is out of the bottle, and your average Joe learns just how cheap, easy, and fun it is to build your own, they won’t be able to stuff it back in. They could unwittingly send the number of AR’s skyrocketing even higher than they already did.
They’re already trying to eliminate build your own
Of course, but they haven’t made any real traction in that direction.
Even if they pass a 1,000% tax on every serialized part, a company could easily just sell lowers for $1 or $10, when added-on to any order of an upper worth $300 or more.
They don’t want to hear any bushwa about constitutional rights. Or about public opinion, apparently.
Democrats don’t believe in fundamental God-given rights. Everything must come from the state.
Yesterday, while checking out a cooking series from Azerbaijan, an ad for banning the AR-15 was aired with a mother who lost her child at Sandy Hook. She said her child suffered 5 bullet wounds plus so many rounds fired in “4 minutes”. What caught my attention is the number of wounds… this was murder and mutilation. The real issue is that far fewer rounds were needed.
Secondly….. I give you Dunblane were a similar shooting to Texas was done with two revolvers. Once you trap little kids … anything will do.
Finally…. Biden’s address had a significant change. He referenced Scalia but changed what Scalia said about government “securing” rights while Biden said “granting” rights. Major difference. The Dems consider all rights to be created through government rather than natural. So Cuomo and Whitmer could doom thousands with no consequence as the right to exist can be revoked.
If the tax is on assault weapons, is the term actually defined anywhere in legislation? Could knives, baseball bats, and other weapons used in assaults be taxed? Could cars be taxed given they’re used in vehicular assaults? Might the GOP be able to use this legislation to mock Democrat efforts?
Yes, it is defined. As this post says, “items defined as ‘assault weapons’ using terms similar to those in Congressman Cicilline’s Assault Weapons Ban Act (which includes high capacity magazines).”
Regarding Congressman Cicilline’s Assault Weapons Ban Act:
“The Assault Weapons Ban of 2021:
• Bans the sale, manufacture, transfer and importation of 205 military-style assault weapons by name. Owners may keep existing weapons.
• Bans any assault weapon with a magazine that is not a fixed ammunition magazine and has one or more military characteristics including a pistol grip, a forward grip, a barrel shroud, a threaded barrel or a folding or telescoping stock. Owners may keep existing weapons.
• Bans magazines and other ammunition feeding devices that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, which allow shooters to quickly fire many rounds without needing to reload. Owners may keep existing magazines.
• Requires a background check on any future sale, trade or gifting of an assault weapon covered by the bill.
• Requires that grandfathered assault weapons are stored using a secure gun storage or safety device like a trigger lock.
• Prohibits the transfer of high-capacity ammunition magazines.
• Bans bump-fire stocks and other devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire at fully automatic rates.”
https://cicilline.house.gov/press-release/cicilline-feinstein-introduce-assault-weapons-ban
The prohibition of “one or more military characteristics” is overly broad.
Of course it is. The whole thing is ridiculous. But George Kaplan’s question was whether the term was defined anywhere in the bill, so I answered yes, it is.
Well, it’s not taxation without representation: criminals are well represented in Congress.
A good cartoon regarding gun buybacks and background checks …
https://youtu.be/v8jx783eQ1I?t=444 .
Uh, wrong link? That took me to some guy talking about Elon threatening to walk away from purchasing twitter.
The cartoon is at timestamp t=444 . The channel it very strongly pro-2A.
Yeah, I paid a bit better attention the second time. Said cartoons I was expecting drawings but I got it second go around.
Dear Rep. Don Beyer,
Please point out a class of firearms that has not been a “weapon of war”.
ever notice the ones calling for gun control the most are the ones that have their own private secutiry
Congressman Beyer is currently facing a Democratic primary challenger from the far left. The primary is three weeks away.
Even using this to get around the filibuster probably wouldn’t work. I have little doubt that the senate parliamentarian would rule it not to be a genuine revenue-raising measure, and therefore not to qualify for reconciliation.
That parliamentarian was appointed by Harry Reid, and in any case gets to keep her job only at the pleasure of the Senate majority leader. Harry doesn’t appoint people who are going to oppose Democrat initiatives, and in the unlikely event she does she did she can be removed and replaced at will. The Senate doesn’t have to listen to her anyway.
that parliamentarian has already done it at least once….much to the chagrin of the power grabbers.
1. She’s already defied the Dems and got away with it.
2. Under the current senate arrangement I doubt she can be fired without the minority leader’s consent.
I’m sure the first thing on a murder-suicide candidate’s mind is the taxes they’re going to have to pay on their purchase.
I’m pretty sure they are already past item #1 on the “certainties in life” list.
Your right depends on how much you can pay for it.
Sounds like class warfare
It’s like justice. Justice is for those who can afford it.
More like “just us” as in rights for just us the ruling elite and not for you peons.
Well, if that goes through the FBI is gonna have to have a budget increase.
If our God-given rights are going to be criminalized by these corrupt tyrants, then they are putting us all in a corner to fight out of. Not a good idea. The perfect reason to stand our ground against the government. The very reason for the 2A. They are trying to win a war against the citizens without a fight. When does that ever happen?
Gun control is mandatory to harden the Left’s ongoing coup. Rittenhouse showed that BLM/Anitfa’s rule of the streets was not “absolute”. The government can and did look the other way…but the private citizen on the front line can’t.
Democrats: Well if we can’t just outright ban it we’ll do the next best thing and make it unaffordable to the dirty plebs to exercise their rights!
If this passes though, man it may be a few years before it can be removed because any attempt before Joe is removed would need veto proof majorities in both houses of Congress. And if we don’t get that it will be having to wait for court cases to wind their way through the system up to the Supremes unless a direct challenge gets heard by them immediately.
People have been buying guns with both fists every time the government threatens to take them. You would think they get it We will not surrender our guns. All this would do is create a huge underground gun economy. They are God-given rights. Taxes? Optional. We are keeping our guns. Period. And if everything we do will be illegal, why not make money buying and selling tax-free?
That is how underground economies emerge to undermine corrupt “free” markets. The “free” markets become too inefficient to survive. So it becomes a game of oppression and repression by thuggish governments and “dem wit da guns” win. That is why we keep our guns. To protect our God-given rights to freedom.
That is true, something like this would dramatically increase the size of the black market for these arms as that would be way more affordable than putting up with these taxes and fees. Then it would just be up to the purchasers to keep Uncle Sam from finding out they have these guns.
Well, we need to see the final version and text of this “bill” first to see what the appropriate actions to take against it are.
Given the anticipated red wave, I think this will be a hard sell in the best of cases.
Even many average citizen Dem voters won’t like this. The party leaders at the top are out of touch with most of their voters, listening only to the AOCs out there. A small percentage.
There are a lot of Dem gun buyers on the street. Hunters, those interested in self-defense, etc. Taxing “extendo-clips” and anything for the Draco or Micro Draco hurts their own constituents.
The party leaders are only listening to MONEY and they don’t care who likes or supports what.
Heck, why don’t we put a tax on all the bill of rights?! Want to exercise freedom of speech or religion, pay a tax first. Want to right to remain silent, pay a tax. Want to be free from illegal searches and seizures, pay a tax. Want right to a jury trial and counsel, pay a tax.
Yep. As I wrote above, if these were rights granted by the government, then a government could condition it on paying a tax (except the right to vote, which the constitution explicitly forbids making subject to such a condition). But rights that are not granted by the government, such as those protected by the first and second amendments, can’t be conditioned on anything.
That’s right, the Constitution binds the government, not the People (and “our Posterity”), is a novel form of governance unlike democracy, monarchies, dictatorships, etc. that preceded it.
Government is obligated to secure these rights….not grant them. This is exactly where the schism is. Government has been changed from a tool into an “entity” …increasingly an arm of a political ideology separate from the original intent. As Washington noted…government is like fire…a troublesome servant and a fiercesome master.
You’re missing the point. You can’t possibly think that governments don’t grant any rights. They certainly do. And when they do, they can attach almost any condition to them, unless there’s a constitutional provision saying otherwise. But they can’t do that to rights that they don’t grant in the first place.
It all depends on what the meaning of the word is is.
You’re misusing the word “rights” just like the United Nations does. When you read the UN declaration of human rights, you will notice that it says that you have all of these rights except when some government or other that controls you deems it temporarily or even permanently inconvenient. Those aren’t rights, those are bad jokes.
You are wrong. There are rights that preexist all governments, fundamental rights with which all people were endowed by their Creator.
But there are also rights that do not exist in a state of nature, but that are created by some governments and not others. People living in those places where the government has created such a right have it; those living elsewhere do not.
Such as the right to a jury trial. Most countries in the world have no such thing, and they are not thereby violating anyone’s rights. But people who happen to live in the USA do have such a right, because the states and the USA have granted them that right.
The same applies to the right to vote; it’s up to each state to decide who gets to vote. Originally they were completely free to restrict or expand the franchise as they pleased; over the years various amendments limited that freedom, but did not eliminate it. And in presidential elections there is nothing forcing a state to allow anyone to vote. And yet in all 50 states there is such a right, because the state has granted it; and the US constitution explicitly refers to that right.
millhouse you are a PECKERWOOD!….PERIOD
And you are a useless waste of oxygen, who has never done any good to any person ever. Go fuck yourself.
Milhouse usually says something that someone dislikes and he sometimes says something that nobody likes but he rarely fails to make his point. Deal with it.
.
In fairness, I have to ask, what part of his posts do you feel are in error qualifying for such a claim?
I lock up with and correct him on occasion and not a fanboy at all of anyone (and I can get just as heavy/harsh at times myself) but the majority of his posts are factual and part of the “inconvenient” and often “unpopular” truth of the situation.
If you disagree, fine- present your case and let the facts go where they may but you have yet to establish a foundation for your claim other than an unqualified rant.
1,000% tax on a man’s penis and a woman’s vagina. And, of course, the first-choice of homicidal people… persons: blades, including the double-edged scalpel, knives, etc.
“1,000% tax on a man’s penis and a woman’s vagina.”
But only when you were still mutual conjunction.
Still waiting for the CDC to have the courage to demand that gay men keep it in their pants for two weeks to flatten the monkeypox curve. You will never see it happen.
“Only when used in mutual conjunction.”
Hey Elon, can you toss us a few bucks for an edit button?
1,000% tax on the anus and rectum. Fluid and fecal exchange during digestive intercourse are primary transmission paths for diverse pathogens, including: HIV, SARS-CoV-2, the Monkeypox virus, etc.
Obviously, the Democratic Party has moved on to the January 6 issue and are handing over leadership to pass gun control to the Republicans:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/06/07/report-sen-john-cornyn-wants-more-time-reach-consensus-gun-control/
Say it: UNIPARTY! UNIPARTY! UNIPARTY!
There is no such thing as the Republican Party. It’s THE STUPID PARTY!
Nothing stupid about it.
Just another shared agenda item.
It seems the left has almost totally purged the DNC of any intelligent people but it seems we may be starting to gain ground on the GOPe ( primaries and elections will tell)
Many conservatives are massively pushing against Cornyn and they are feeling it.
The GOPe believes that the Party doesn’t need riff-raff voters that don’t belong to their country club.. While I can afford to join a country club….I’ll stay with the deplorables who are my kinsmen.
I don’t disagree
I’d rather shoot orange frisbees than little white balls.
By this same line of thought, can we put a 1000% tax on the parents of the murderer and a 1000% fine on the political party they support too?
Is ANYONE talking about the laws/policies/procedures already in place that “should” have stopped both of these two mass shootings – Had they been appropriately enforeced/implemented?
I know that the Dems will use any excuse to jump on the “more gun control laws” bandwagon, but if the actual goal is to save actual lives, shouldn’t we be talking about exactly what failed in the system and why the appropriate measures weren’t taken?
No, the left not only WANTS more shootings, they NEED them.
This is not about crime control, protecting the children, mental health or any beneficial thing- it NEVER has been or will be.
Not all but some of these shootings were most likely orchestrated/enabled by the left and are true false flags.
The goal of the left in this case ( as in all actually) is to totally dominate and rule with an iron fist over all the sheeple as they see fit with their enlightened path. Gun’s ( specifically the 2A and Freedom) are the only thing stopping them.
Its like that line from the original Terminator.
They are machines, they cant be reasoned with, feel no pain and they will never stop. There is no blow too low, no lie too untrue, no emotion they wont employ , no crime they wont commit in the name of the agenda.
They make the Borg look like the JW’s.
Fast and Furious.
In the spirit of this tax, there should also be a licensing fee for any journalist employed by legacy media. Say, $10,000/ year?
Voting is a mere Privilege that government can, and does, take away from people (typically felons), and yet the SCOTUS has ruled that it is Un-Constitutional to impose a poll tax because that restricts the exercise of that privilege.
The 2nd Amendment is an actual RIGHT, and furthermore it is the only one that is absolute – no other Right explicitly states that it “shall not be infringed”. But, there are literally thousands of gun control laws in this country, across every conceivable jurisdiction, and putting a tax on ammunition and weapons for the explicit purpose, openly admitted, of preventing anyone that is not stinking rich from being able to exercise their Constitutional Right is perfectly fine.
No, that is completely wrong. SCOTUS has never made any such ruling.
First of all, poll taxes are still legal. Both congress and states can impose them; currently none have, because they’d be politically unpopular. But Sen. Scott’s proposed platform does seem to suggest the next GOP Congress will consider a poll tax, which is the flimsy basis on which Biden has been ranting that the Republicans will raise taxes for working people.
Second, until the 24th amendment was ratified some states could and did make voting conditional on payment of various taxes, including the poll tax if the state had one. And nobody ever suggested they couldn’t do that. The only complaints were that in some states electoral officers had wide discretion on whether and how to enforce these requirements, and used it to enforce them strictly on black people and very loosely on white people. Instead of simply requiring that they be enforced equally on everyone, which they should have done, Congress and 3/4 of the states decided to amend the constitution to ban this practice altogether. I think that was a mistake, but what’s done is done.
At any rate, that amendment is the only reason this particular right can’t be conditioned on tax payment. All other rights can be — provided that they are rights granted by the state in the first place. The rights protected by the first and second amendments aren’t, so they can’t be conditioned on anything.
That is not true. The first says “shall not be abridged” and the fourth says “shall not be violated”. There’s no significant difference at all between those verbs; the framers seem to have used them simply for variety.
And of course all of these rights, including the RKBA, have exceptions built in to them. Those exceptions are not abridgements, infringements, or violations, they’re exceptions to the original right. When Congress says a person convicted of a violent felony can’t own weapons, it’s not infringing the right, because the right never included that. Likewise defamation laws don’t abridge the freedom of speech, because that freedom never included defamation. Discovering these exceptions and determining their exact boundaries is the courts’ job.
“When Congress says a person convicted of a violent felony can’t own weapons, it’s not infringing the right, because the right never included that.”
And where is that supported in the text of the second amendment, specifically?
For many decades, in many places, it was absolutely boiler plate to return the gun rights of a felon who had served out his time. So you not only cannot argue the text of the second amendment, you cannot even argue contemporaneous practice.
It isn’t supported in the text; it doesn’t need to be. The text merely names the right; it does not describe its exact boundaries. That is the courts’ job.
That some states, at some times, allowed people convicted of violent felonies to own arms is irrelevant; they didn’t have to do that, and when they chose not to no court ever said they were infringing the right.
The text of the first amendment doesn’t say anything about exceptions either, and yet the courts have long ago mapped them all out in great detail, and determined that there aren’t likely to be any more.
No law abiding American—regardless of age—should have to sacrifice his or her gun rights to the leftist mob. The 2A representing an inalienable right, after all. But only one idea fits into the Democrat reptilian, power seeking brain when it comes to guns: strip them from law abiding Americans. This promises no effect on criminals or madmen. But then, Democrats need the dead bodies of innocents to keep their despotism alive.
How about a 1000% tax on all funds received to run for office, that sounds much better to me. Wait…You say no one will be able to afford to run? Even better!