Virginia’s Congressman Donald Beyer hates the poor and only believes “assault weapons” should only be a purview of the financially privileged.
At least, that is what a 1,000% excise tax on the firearms would mean as it propels America’s most popular rifle into a price bracket with most NFA transferable machine guns. Remember those, legal machine guns? They are still around, but only for those with more disposable income than a solid used car costs. Ah, classicism. It’s wonderful that Donald is likely both in a financial class where he could still get these if he wanted and that he has the protections provided, via taxpayer dollars of those now prohibited due to price, provided to our elected.
Guns for me but not for thee, for the children.
Now, this is unlikely to pass. Just as an assault weapon ban is unlikely to pass and instead simply be used as a political wedge that it always is. I’ve already seen several headlines about, “If only the age had been 21, ______ wouldn’t have happened.” as gun controllers exploit victims and survivors to pass rules that would only have ‘saved’ them if there weren’t alternative methods of injury.
That is where these emotive arguments all fall flat of building coherent policy, we are never actually addressing motive or curbing method of injury. We’re looking at a gallon of water, declaring part of the water dangerously wet.
“There’s nothing magical about that thousand percent number. It’s severe enough to actually inhibit and restrict sales. But also successful enough that it’s not seen as an absolute ban.” – Beyer, to Business Insider.
So as long as it isn’t an absolute ban, just only accessible by the wealthy elites, it is a-ok. No Second Amendment violation at all. Very cool, Congressman. Propelling a good’s cost, one that is a natural human and constitutionally protected right to own, from $1,000 of material and labor costs to $10,000 of sin tax to the government certainly doesn’t stink of theft, oppression, or elitism at all. Oh, and I bet they promise not to use this new found leverage on any other good or service.
Again, this is not all that likely to get a serious vote. It is the the type of item they are throwing in as a smokescreen for legislation they know does have a chance. Red Flag legislation, Universal Background Check for transfers legislation, raising the age on all semi-autos to 21…
The short of it is, as usual, the legislature is using the more extreme proposals as cover for the proposals that look more reasonable in contrast. This means that if they pass these ‘more reasonable’ measures, they get to claim a win for their gun control constituents while simultaneously setting up the next argument when their rule inevitably doesn’t work. If they see a positive shift in their homicide numbers they can claim it is all due to their hard work on the rule, if they don’t see a change or it gets worse it will because of those obstructionist Republicans and their love of dead school kids and massacres, right?
Any win for anti-gunners just sets up the leverage for the next horrific crime to be used. Nobody ask why the thousands of rules we have in place aren’t working, just make more rules! Nobody even critically analyzes whether a rule could have a positive effect in broad context, just point out the narrow perfect world situation where it would have worked if a perpetrator didn’t put any effort into a work around.
We’ll see what actually hits the full floors out of committee.
The Tax would be a repeat of the National Firearms Act Tax, but at a far greater margin. The Thompson, in 1934, was $200 and the tax on it was $200, making it a 100% tax. We’ve upped that factor by 10 since incomes are far greater and pricing is far different. But the effect is the same, price the item out of access but make it technically accessible so as not to run afoul of he 2A… technically. Taxation is truly theft.
