Democrats Reintroduce Legislation Proposing 1,000% Excise Tax on ‘Assault Weapons’
Just a reminder that the left won’t stop trying to usurp the Second Amendment.
El. Oh. El.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) and 24 other House Democrats reintroduced legislation that would add a 1,000% excise tax on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
That means a $500 weapon would cost $5,000:
The text of Beyer’s new bill was not out as of the weekend, and it was unclear if any changes were made from his 2022 version. His bill from last year imposed the tax on any magazine or related device that can accept more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
The same 1,000% tax would be imposed on any “semiautomatic assault weapon,” which last year’s bill defined as a semiautomatic rifle or pistol with a fixed magazine of 10 rounds or more or that have other various features.
In 2022, Beyer said: “Congress must take action to stem the flood of weapons of war into American communities, which have taken a terrible toll in Uvalde, Buffalo, Tulsa and too many other places. Again and again assault weapons designed for use on the battlefield have been used in mass shootings at schools, grocery stores, hospitals, churches, synagogues, malls, theaters, bars and so on.”
The Democrats are ticked because the Republicans haven’t done anything “to curb gun ownership in America.”
“American children should not be scared to go to school. Parents should not be scared that when they send their kids off in the morning that it may be the last time they see them alive,” said Rep. Mike Thompson, chairman of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. “Gun violence demands our attention, yet the Republican House Leadership has not brought a single gun violence prevention bill up for a vote. The Gun Violence Prevention Task Force is calling on Speaker McCarthy to help us save lives and pass legislation that would keep our kids safe.”
Um, the Second Amendment, dudes. There’s a period at the end of the Second Amendment. It doesn’t contain “except,” “just in case,” or “but.”
Also, what are these assault weapons?! I hate this buzzword more than any other buzzword the left uses. My AR-15 isn’t a war weapon. Anyone who takes it into war would get taken out immediately.
I know the legislation won’t happen this session, but we all need the reminder that the left will do anything to usurp the Second Amendment.
Without the Second Amendment, we are doomed.
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Comments
Ds deliberately not understanding English, “. . . shall not be infringed.”
How about a 1000% tax on abortions?
How about a ban on Dems producing CO2?
1000% excise tax on registered Democrats.
Cool. Use the majority in the HoR to pass legislation modeled on this crap to increase the cost of filing for an asylum claim or any sort of immigration law waiver to $5,000 as well. Non refundable of course, the fee is just to get the paperwork accepted.
You mean the Parliament of HoRs?
Very nice!
If this passes we need to put a 1000% tax on all ads the people who voted for this buy to get reelected.
It’s only a matter of time before the Democrats move to tax the air we breathe.
Isn’t it Virginia the taxes rainwater?
This idea is as stupid as when the Chief Justice decreed that ObamaCare was a Tax.
Everyone should purchase ARs for every family member along with a thousand rounds for each AR. If that’s to expensive the you can buy stripped lowers for $100 or so now and get the parts to complete them later.
Does this tax on “assault weapons” include weapons such as tireirons, hammers, axes, swords, spears, knives, toxic drugs, automobiles, bowling balls, banjos, microwave ovens, pumpernickel bread, jump rope, toilet lids, guitar strings, dessert spoons, frying pans, picket jars, belts, scissors, dumbbells, laundry bags ?
You forgot pitch forks and bail hooks. Also, fire hardened sticks for them to stop anal itch.
Daring of them, when Americans have just learned that “Conspiracy against Rights” is an actual federal crime.
An excessive tax will put some firearms out of the budget of many, others will find a way to obtain them. A basement machine shop could be equipped for a reasonable cost.
The attack on guns ownership has taken a new turn. The touchstone now is “self-defense”…. what is needed for home protection and everything not “historic” is banned. This has neutered the intent to maintain a free state to just enough usefulness to stop home robberies. As long as one can fire one shot, everything else is ban-able. Magazines? Yep. Semi-auto rifles? Yep. The FJoe Biden single shot shotgun? Protected. You have a right but can’t use it.
Fine….. let’s put the NYT and WP back to single stage printing presses… since that is the historic narrative. Ink reservoirs for those high capacity printing presses? They can be banned. As long as only one page can be printed, the right of the press is maintained.
Yup. They’ve glommed onto “in common use for self-defense”, when SCOTUS actually said “in common use for lawful purposes”. And too many courts aren’t catching that swap.
Call them out when you see it.
They also subvert “in common use” by changing the definition of “in use”. To whit, they claim a firearm is only “in use” for self-defense if it’s actually fired — i.e. if the violent encounter ended without shots fired, the firearm wasn’t “in use”. Similarly, they claim that “large-capacity magazines” aren’t “in common use for self-defense” because people rarely fire more than 10 rounds in self-defense (regardless of what magazine is inserted in their firearm).
And that’s in addition to many, many claims that magazines aren’t “arms” protected by the 2nd Amendment — despite SCOTUS precedent saying that magazines necessary for the firearm to function ARE protected “arms”.
Call them out on all of it.
Still and again and again: If you or I egregiously and aggressively conspired to deprive others their civil rights, the state AG or DOJ would see us in prison or bankrupt or both.
In a just world, Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) and 24 other House Democrats would be expelled from congress, and sitting in prison without bail awaiting trial for egregiously and aggressively conspiring to deprive millions of citizens their civil rights.
Until these would-be tyrants feel the pain of prison for their egregious and aggressive anti-constitutional acts, it’s all just **clown world**
This falls right in line with CO.s new law. can’t buy a weapon until 21 but you can claim you’re a cat as soon as you’re born.
So identify as a 21-year-old and buy your weapon.
This drama over AR 15 ownership from the leftists is stupid. There’s a very good argument in favor of the AR 15 as the best weapon platform for the ‘Militia’; aka civilians.
The AR is basically an M16/M4 (-) a burst or full auto option it is semi auto only. (other than a very few) The M16/M4 platforms have been in use by the DoD since before I was born. There are tens of millions of Veterans who were trained to operate and maintain one. The AR 15, most of them anyway, fire the same 5.56 round as the DoD uses or for that matter LEO use.
The end result is a weapon that the civilian population is well versed in operating and maintaining. The Veteran population can add training other folks to their brief if required. Plus there are tens of thousands of Veterans school trained for unit level maintenance. B/C it is semi auto it cuts down on the amount of potential wasted ammo from the non existent full auto/burst option. Uses the same caliber as LEO and DoD so ammo resupply wouldn’t be a huge issue.
All in all, the AR 15 is probably the best weapon platform to fill the role of primary weapon for a Militia.
The Left are Druids. A rifle, designed for the military but then altered to “historic” semi-auto design, is still “a weapon of war” to them as if its lineage is one of mass murder. Shape steel and aluminum in a fashion and evil is created.
History… you want history? The bolt action rifle by lineage is “a weapon of war” initially designed and issued to militaries from the 1880’s. The magazine-feed semiautomatic rifle was first and foremost a civilian design since the world’s militaries had different concepts of war. Only with the WWI did the nations begin to think about the semi-auto. England and France bought Remington Model 8 and Winchester Model 1910 rifles to try out but trench warfare was still too gritty for these. The select fire Browning BAR is about as close as most came… if we discount the Czarist Federov rifle from 1915.
Functionally, there is no difference between an AR-15 and the Winchester 1910. Josh Sugarman of Handgun Control candidly stated that the confusion over real assault rifles and civilian rifles would allow bans. For over 100 years for the design and over 60 years since the first marketing of the AR-15…. nothing was an issue until Democrat disarmament became a goal….. well disarmament for the prols that is.
Sure. I agree. I am just offering a proposal for a ‘theme’ or ‘narrative’ of our own to combat the lefty gun grabbers every time they invoke AR 15.
And in real history, the AR-15 was designed by Armalite in 1958-59, by scaling down the larger-caliber AR-10. Colt Manufacturing bought the rights to both rifles and started marketing and selling them in 1959. The DoD didn’t fully adopt the variant designated “Rifle, 5.56mm, model M16” until 1964.
Where did all those pre-adoption AR-15 rifles go? Why, they got sold on the civilian market!
It might have been “designed for the military”, but the military initially rejected it, and its first half-decade of sales went to civilians. Contrast with bolt-action rifles, which — as you point out — were “designed for the military”, went directly into military use, and were offered to civilians only later.
Yet, the semi-auto AR-15 — which no standing military on Earth has ever issued to their troops — is deemed a “weapon of war”, while the bolt-action rifle — which has been fielded by every military AND used in war-fighting since its development — is NOT a “weapon of war”.
Go figure.
Nobody ever said communists were smart or that they had to make sense.
The thing is, though, the communist higher-ups (“members of the Party”, in Orwellian fiction) ARE smart, and once you understand their goals they DO make sense.
It’s just that their goals are never what they claim. They don’t want safety or crime-free streets; they want power and a disempowered subject population to control, and are willing to play the long game (and pit various groups against each other) to get it.
Seen in that light, everything they say and do makes perfect sense.
“…while the bolt-action rifle — which has been fielded by every military AND used in war-fighting since its development — is NOT a “weapon of war”.
Not yet.
Good review of the history. The AR(malite)-10 was an advanced design created to compete in international markets for a next-gen main battle rifle. It lost out pretty much everywhere and against the FN-FAL (G1), H&K 91 (G3) and the Swiss 510 (G2) in Germany’s decision. (it was the G4).
The Left loves to control words and their (ever conforming) meanings. The 223 is a varmint level cartridge. The intended battle doctrine was wounding ties up more assets than killing an enemy. Humans are fragile in the animal kingdom….
I really hate the “historic/tradition” test. It presumes that early firearms laws/restrictions were constitutional, even though the vast majority of them were never challenged (and therefore there is no judicial opinion to support the premise), or they passed review, but under judicial standards and in a legal environment that differs from those that exist today. The test is made up BS.
And racist… add Catholics into the same despicable crowd as free and freed blacks that needed containment. The Left is using their old Jim Crow Laws to make new Jim Crow law decisions.
Is it Catholics people dislike, or the Catholic version of Deep State? I don’t dislike Catholics, I do find the hierarchy distasteful.
“”All in all, the AR 15 is probably the best weapon platform to fill the role of primary weapon for a Militia.””
But of course they hate militias as much as, if not more than, AR-15’s.
Ah but the leftist believe the 2A is about militia service not self defense. At least they pretend to when they they make their tired gun grabber arguments.
I bought an AR for 9 mm, I did not think I needed long range for self defense, & have 9 mm pistols. Going to be traveling a lot pretty soon, limited in how much I can carry.
Not a bad choice. Another option would be a .357 mag lever action rifle and a .357 mag revolver. Neither are ‘scary black rifle’ nor an ‘evil semi auto pistol’ and both are more than adequate to put down a threat.
Marlin 1895 or a Henry in 45-70 govt are great lever action travel rifles for car/truck that meet the ‘non-scary’ test… unless you are educated enough to know what you are really looking at.
Because only rich, white, land owners should be allowed firearms?
Unbelievably based.
That was part of the intent of NFA34.
Correct. The NFA34’s $200 tax stamp is a trifle in modern times, but in 1934 was several times the value of the item.
$200 tax on a $60 used Browning Automatic Rifle? That’s a bit over 300%. But a $200 tax on a $20 noise suppressor? Yea, that’s a 1,000% tax.
The Hughes Amendment (to the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986) did the same with “machineguns” — it just leveraged the laws of supply and demand instead of outright taxing them — and made them far too expensive for the non-wealthy.
The collectivist Left has been playing this game for a LONG time.
It sounds to me like this would dramatically increase the value of every firearm and magazine I currently own. Especially since state law does not require registration of rifles, pistols or shotguns. The government doesn’t even know about them, so even if they tried to make something like this retroactive, I wouldn’t pay them a dime.
One nitpick: A 1,000% tax on firearms means a $500 firearm costs $5,500, not $5,000 — $5k is just the tax, separate from the MSRP.
Other than that, spot on! What other Constitutionally-protected right gets subjected to the kind of abuse the 2nd faces on a daily basis? If the House of Representatives were suggesting the government charge a $5,000 tax on voting, there would be an uproar that would make J6 look like a church prayer meeting, and rightfully so. Ditto if they filed a bill mandating a 1,000% tax on newspapers, Bibles, computers, printers, and internet service. Or a 1,000% tax on attorney representation (and all the perverse incentives created by turning filed criminal charges into an income source).
It’s nothing more or less than a “poll tax”, designed and enacted so that only the super-rich can afford to exercise their Constitutional rights. The rest of us can GTFO.
(And is there a law-enforcement exception in the bill? If I were a gambling man, I’d bet good money that LEOs and police departments are exempt from the tax. The government wouldn’t want to tax its enforcers into oblivion, would it now? Nah, just us commoners.)
” What other Constitutionally-protected right gets subjected to the kind of abuse the 2nd faces on a daily basis?”
The 1st,
Nah, the 1st has too many defenders. The ACLU and “civil rights” groups like them will defend the 1st Amendment to the hilt on behalf of the mainstream media, even if they don’t understand all of it or that it’s there for everybody.
But those same “civil rights” groups will turn around and crap all over the 2nd … as if the precedent of letting one of the 10 Bill of Rights amendments get infringed into meaninglessness doesn’t hold dire implications for the other nine.
The conclusion that the elimination of “assault weapons” (or “high-capacity” magazines) “from our streets” would eliminate mass shootings is based on a logical fallacy. The left confuses “active shooters choose semi-autos” with “active shooters need semi-autos.” The promise or inference of the anti-AR pitch is that elimination of semi-autos will eliminate mass shooting events. But Charles Witman killed 14 people with a bolt action rifle (with a 3-round internal magazine), no semi-auto needed. Careful, aimed fire from a larger caliber weapon could possibly have killed more people at Las Vegas in the Mandalay Bay incident. The fact that ARs were used does not prove that they were in any way necessary to do as much, or possibly more, damage.
The worst school massacre in U.S. history (Bath, Michigan) was committed with firebombs, which collapsed the building. The perpetrator had a lever-action rifle in his truck, but I don’t believe he used it to shoot anybody (IIRC, half his bombs didn’t go off, and he shot at the rest in an attempt to detonate them, too).
And you can do an internet search for knife and machete attacks at schools in Asia — particularly China. Some result in 40+ deaths before anyone can subdue the attacker.
As you say, just because a lot of mass-killers choose so-called “assault weapons”, doesn’t mean they need those firearms …
… or ANY firearms, for that matter.
Think the Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City and the Twin Towers in NYC. Who needs a gun when transportation vehicles are so much more effective?
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Exactly, and great examples!
Passage of such a “tax” would delight criminal cartels no end. “Hey guys, thanks for providing us with a new market for illicit activity! Your southern border is so porous we can march a circus elephant through it. We’re gonna make a ton of money!”
Yep. The criminal class — who actually commit crimes — won’t be subjected to the tax; it does not and cannot apply to black market transactions.
Nope, it’s a punishment on the non-criminal class — who do NOT commit crimes — for daring to exercise their rights and demonstrate some individualism and independence.
Republicans should put forward a gun control law that makes it a federal crime to abuse the 2nd amendment with a penalty of 30 years in federal prison for those convicted of this crime. Abuse of the 2nd amendment is using a firearm during the commission of a crime and a felon illegally in possession of a firearm.
Add to that a section saying that someone with felony convictions who utilizes an armed security detail (like a lot of big-city Democrat mayors) is guilty of being a felon in possession by proxy, and can get 10 years for each offense (read: each armed security staff, whether a police detail or a private firm).
If someone is barred from their 2nd Amendment rights due to their prior criminal acts, they shouldn’t be allowed to commandeer someone else’s 2nd Amendment rights for their own benefit. Otherwise, given enough wealth, the prohibition becomes meaningless.
Should we have to pay to incarcerate any criminal for 30 years? There must be a better solution.
Cheaper to do that then all the robberies and murders these criminals would do. The idea is to make the penalty so hard that criminals would stop using firearms to commit crimes. We should also treat the laws which prevent people from bearing arms as civil rights violations. They are effectively denying peoples civil right s like the Dems did with Jim Crowe.
But who is waging this “war” with so-called assault weapons? My guess it is mentally deficient people recruited by Federal agencies to stir the pot so people will demand we do something — even if it means eviscerating the second amendment. That’s my tin-foil hat story and I’m sticking to it.
The only bar to unbridled tyrannical power is an armed citizenry. And to think a few dozen or so victims a year is too high of a price for a certain political ideological mindset to pay?
Given that the Parkland shooter was “known to police” AND on the FBI’s radar — and that they had legal authority to block his firearms acquisitions — it would not surprise me if they green-lighted and fast-tracked his weapon purchases to spur him to action.
That’s MY tin-foil-hat story.
And given the BATFE’s actions during “Operation Fast & Furious” (they approved known straw purchasers, knowing the guns would end up across the border with the Mexican cartels), my tin-foil-hat story even has some precedent.
The purpose of an excise tax is normally to discourage the purchase of the good being taxed.
“Shall not be infringed.”
What the government wants to see less of, they tax or defund. What they want to see more of, they waive costs or subsidize.
So they seek to tax lawful gun ownership and defund actual policing.
At the same time, they waive the costs of criminal activity (in the form of revolving-door and no-cash-bail policies), and subsidize broken homes and families and sub-standard public education.
Puts their priorities into focus, doesn’t it?
So the Dems are going to pass a law that will only allow the rich to have WeaPons oF wAr? That should play really well across all the socio economic lines. lol
will this apply to the police?
I think the SC has ruled that a tax like this would be a violation of our civil right, our 2nd amendment civil rights.
Like poll taxes are illegal because they prevent people from exercising their right to vote.
Why can’t we pass laws that impose our values and respect for the constitution on society? Like requiring every state to respect CCW permits issued by other states . Requiring that states respect the people’s right to keep and bear arm. Ending birth right citizenship for the children of illegals. Making those who request asylum wait in Mexico until their trial. Make illegals felons and ineligible for citizenship. Make it a crime to abuse the 2nd by using a firearm while committing another crime or possession of a firearm by a felon. The penalty for this crime being 30 years in federal prison.
I assume that there will be a Charles Rangel exclusion for congressional purchases.
“That means a $500 weapon would cost $5,000.”
Wouldn’t that be $5,500?
1000% of $500 = $5,000
$500 + $5,000(tax) = $5,500
This is a math question and the answer depends on the race of the purchaser. Please post your white-centric comments on the neo-Nazi websites where they belong.
The Florida Dept of Health can issue a $5,000 fine for violating the Constitution and asking for vaccination papers. Let’s extend this further.
How about we pass a law implementing a $10,000 fine for advocating restriction of Constitutional Rights through any other means than a Constitutional Amendment, since that is the only legal way to do it!
We also need a fine for advocating restriction of rights without due process. We should not tolerate people who advocate taking things away from innocent people when criminals do criminal things.