San Jose to tax gun owners to pay for damages caused by gun violence

[hal]

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...283422.php

Those gun-grabbing californians are at it again...

Officials have not decided how much gun owners will be required to pay in fees, which would be used to defray the direct costs of gun violence to city taxpayers for services that include police response, ambulance transport and gunshot-related medical treatment for victims.

The fees would be determined upon completion of a gun harm study from the Pacific Institute on Research and Evaluation, whose results are expected in the fall. In a preliminary report released ahead of the vote, the institute estimated that gun-related homicides, suicides and other shootings cost San Jose around $63 million annually.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

This won't stand for very long, if it even survives the initial stages.

[pdq]

Sounds like a good idea to me.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

It won't hold up constitutionally.

You are going to tax ALL gun owners - citizens who are exercising their constitutional right to own guns - to pay for costs incurred by the actions of a few bad eggs who happen to also own guns? Not a chance. This may initially pass, but in the end it will be found unconstitutional.

[pdq]

If we can tax people who don’t buy health insurance, how can a tax on guns be un-constitutional?

[Ted King]

N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
It won't hold up constitutionally.

You are going to tax ALL gun owners - citizens who are exercising their constitutional right to own guns - to pay for costs incurred by the actions of a few bad eggs who happen to also own guns? Not a chance. This may initially pass, but in the end it will be found unconstitutional.

Don't we already allow sales taxes on guns (in places that have sales taxes) when a gun is purchased?

[Ca Bob]

There are excise taxes on all sorts of things. There are fees. It cost me a huge amount to renew a passport. The price of an airline ticket includes all sorts of add ons.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

Ca Bob wrote:
There are excise taxes on all sorts of things. There are fees. It cost me a huge amount to renew a passport. The price of an airline ticket includes all sorts of add ons.

Not even close to being the same thing.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

Ted King wrote:
[quote=N-OS X-tasy!]
It won't hold up constitutionally.

You are going to tax ALL gun owners - citizens who are exercising their constitutional right to own guns - to pay for costs incurred by the actions of a few bad eggs who happen to also own guns? Not a chance. This may initially pass, but in the end it will be found unconstitutional.

Don't we already allow sales taxes on guns (in places that have sales taxes) when a gun is purchased?
A sales tax is entirely different thing than an ownership liability tax.

[S. Pupp]

Call it gun insurance.