Election 2020 Warren
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
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By Larry Keane

Here’s a question for U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren that someone should ask…Why not just tax crime?

Seriously. She’s got a plan to tax just about everything, including guns. The Massachusetts senator, who is rising as a leader among Democrats vying for the party’s White House nomination, vowed to raise the excise tax on firearms and ammunition to make guns too expensive and suppress firearms ownership. Her plan calls for a 30 percent excise tax increase on guns and a 50 percent increase on ammunition.

Let’s Talk Taxes

Warren doesn’t say in her plan is the firearms industry welcomed the excise tax on firearms and ammunition. It’s called the Pittman-Robertson tax and it funds wildlife conservation. It’s the tax that’s responsible for plentiful whitetail deer, ducks, elk, antelope and turkey. It’s also responsible for conserving millions of acres of wildlife habitat and non-game wildlife, like bald eagles and even newts. The firearms industry is proud to have paid $12.5 billion toward this fund since 1937.

That’s not what Warren suggests. She wants to punish the firearms industry. In her own words, the goal is to “reduce new gun and ammunition sales overall and to bring in new federal revenue that we can use for gun violence prevention…”

Warren also claims it would “bring in new federal revenue” to fund enforcement of gun laws, both existing and the additional ones she’s proposed. What it really does is price the most vulnerable out market. It discriminates against the poor who would be unable to afford the cost of protecting themselves with firearms. One estimate, under the Warren plan, would see the cost of a $400 shotgun jump to $520.

Taxing a Right

Let’s be honest. Warren is talking about creating a poll tax for guns. No one would tolerate a tax on the right to vote or going to a church or even publishing thoughts on social media. Those are freedoms endowed by our Creator, just like our right to keep and bear arms.

Warren would steam her glasses if President Donald Trump imposed a tax on books, movies and newspapers to reduce slander. Raising taxes on prescription medication to combat opioid abuse doesn’t make sense. Neither does saying a tax on guns to make them less affordable reduces crime.

This, of course, is just part of her plan, which also calls for universal background checks, bans on modern sporting rifles like the AR-15, age-based gun bans, bringing back Operation Choke Point to pressure banks from doing business with the firearms industry, a federal gun licensing scheme, repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act and locking up gun company CEOs for the criminal misuse of firearms.

If taxing guns would make these issues go away, why doesn’t Warren just tax criminals for their crimes? Maybe because she knows they wouldn’t pay it, any more than they obey the laws we already have on the books.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel at National Shooting Sports Foundation.

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49 COMMENTS

  1. I would like to see an amendment made that says the government can not tax goods on an individual bases. Only taxing a percentage across all goods. it would get rid of a lot of abuses and corruption and incentive just about every group right wing, left wing or corporations and small businesses to lobby for a lower tax rate on goods.

    Taxes abuse smokers, cigar lovers, gambling, lots of different areas of entertainment, and more. Taxes are very often used to make things prohibitive.

        • Evidently…the bot that spell checks and i disagree with you. LOL.

          Never liked the lazy “izing” of words. I believe it started with “prioritize” so lazy people wouldn’t have to say “set priorities”.

          I guess next we will see “bulletized” instead of shot. Sounds funny now, but one day it will be commonplace.

          I just thought I would commentize on it.

    • “The carefully defined “goal” in itself, makes the proposition unconstitutional. And makes her a moron.”

      Yeah, nice of her to lay it out in ‘black and white’ what the intent is. Justice Thomas would have fun with that in the inevitable decision. I can see the headlines now – “Thomas goes full ‘Ginsu Knives’ on firearms tax law decision”.

      No doubt it’s now been pointed out to them, and they won’t make that mistake again. Then again, they probably will, their utter arrogance makes them think they are invincible…

    • Moron? She cannot possibly be one of those. Why #1 she is a Demorat, #2 She is a She, (I think) #2 She is a Commie pinko libtard, #3 She is Native American, ( Well my dog has more Indian Genes) #4 She has a Law degree, (but knows not what Laws are) #5 She was a professor, (Of course she got those jobs claiming to be an Indian).

      But Moron….that just gives the real Morons a bad name.

    • Paying a tax on a criminal act, prior.to conviction, would be self incrimination. This is why felons can have unregistered NFA items – trying to pay $200 tax admits that they possess, or intend to possess, prohibited firearms.

    • What are Democrats’ smoking, drinking, injecting, snorting, etc. They are making it blatantly clear they have no intention of stopping crime by stopping criminals. They have openly stated Red Flag orders will not be applied to criminals. Is it because in the Marxian dialectic criminals are considered ideologically close and citizens are considered ideologically apart? Either the Dems are forgetting to mask their true intentions, they have have stopped pretending to care, or the stupid pills have been handed out en-masse.

      And punishing people for the actions of criminals makes as much sense as a farmer beating his dog because a fox got into the hen house. They just don’t make logical sense. But they do to their own emotions.

    • Yes, and she wants to REDUCE ‘taxes’ on criminals- i.e. fines, penalties and punishments levied by courts after someone has been judged guilty of a crime. No, no, we can’t have that, we must call them “justice-involved persons” and make sure they don’t suffer any problems due to their convictions. But only if those convictions are for things like robbery, theft, assault, etc. Oh, and possession of a gun illegally in metropolitan areas shouldn’t have a penalty either- it’s racist to punish that, you see, because more black people are arrested for it in Baltimore and Chicago than white.

  2. Warren is talking about creating a poll tax for guns.

    Ah yes little Fauxahontas wheels out the un Constitutional poll tax on a right which “Shall Not Be Infringed” in the first place,and why would America elect a Communist in the first place.

  3. I routinely pay sales tax on books and magazines (the paper kind). Minn. Star Tribune (1983) implies special taxes can’t be levied against 1A items, but no court case has applied it to 2A. I don’t believe Pittman should apply to defensive guns or ammo, but it would be a bureaucratic nightmare.

    • Wow, way to totally miss the point. The sales tax “on books and magazines” is nothing of the sort – it is a GENERAL sales tax on all property sold (I can debate, another time, whether the exemptions for, by way of example, ‘food items’, is valid, but generally ALL personal property sold is subject to sales tax). If we were talking about a special tax that ONLY applied to “books and magazines”, you might have a point. But since you weren’t, you don’t.

      So why did you bother posting that inapposite, and frankly rather stupid, comment?

  4. “Seriously. She’s got a plan to tax just about everything, including guns.”

    I wonder if that plan includes beads made in Japan…

  5. I don’t concern myself with the ridiculous shit that comes out of the mouths of the democrat Can’t i dates. Especially Lieawathas. She’s just a skinnier,uglier version of Hilda Beast. Another Hag displaying her Toxic Femininity. Who’s lies are just as obvious. Count me as one who defend my Rights. Keep Your Powder Dry.

  6. Not a one issue voter by any means. But every single one of these Democratic Party candidates is a platform spouting talking head. Oh there’s some character variations, bit of wiggle here and there on various standardized responses. That’s about it though, character wigglies. Not a scrap of creative thinking, problem solving ability, personal courage or leadership skills.

    Reminds me of a herd of cud chewing Republicans.

    I figure 2020 will be 2016 all over again. Two massively awful choices to the point where picking the least disgusting option loses all meaning. For me though it will not matter as my state’s Electoral votes will go “Red” on President. So I’ll pick a harmless write-in who is at least pro-Second Amendment and otherwise harmless.

    The outcome will be bad, but at least my hands will not be covered in political sewage.

      • You are missing the point.

        If DemonCraps and RepubliStains would quit spending all their political time with their hands in sewage we’d have a chance of solving a problem or two.

        • Do you think we could work together and solve more problems if there wasn’t an impeach Trump at all costs playing on loop?

    • @enuf
      You can’t drain a swamp without getting dirty. If you “Vote” for some harmless unknown 2A supporter who has absolutely no chance of winning, you’ve just thrown away the only weapon you have against tyranny. You would do just as much good to stay a home on election day & give all your guns and other civil rights to the next random person you see on the street.
      This is important. In 2020 we will vote between capitalism or communism. Your choice.

  7. Hey Larry you don’t speak for me. Got it dude ? I don’t WELCOME the PR tax. You very carefully used the term firearm industry welcomed the PR tax. You and your corporate cronies don’t speak for gun owners nor do you defend MY freakin 2A rights. So crawl back to your hole and shut your pie hole.

    • Um, if you’ve purchased a firearm post 1937 then you most certainly have supported the PR tax regardless of how welcoming of it you are. The white tailed deer, wild turkey, and wood ducks all thank you.

  8. I’d like to see her get these laws through a Republican Senate and past a conservative SCOTUS.
    That’s if she even wins, which is doubtful.

  9. Even if she changed the wording after she got elected we could what they did to Trump when they called an immigration policy “racist” based on what he said while campaigning. taxing guns for the reasons she suggests is unconstitutional because it is an INFRINGEMENT on ownership, which is what she is calling it by saying it would be an impediment to purchase. That would be an example of how something that didn’t seem all that serious you did in the past can come back to bite you in the butt.

  10. Since this woman hates guns and the Second Amendment so much, if (God forbid) she is elected as President, she should not get ANY secret Service protection. And if she does, not a damned one of them should have a single weapon in their possession. After all, this pathetic excuse for a woman should lead by example. Between that, and her calling for restrictions on the First Amendment, she should probably just let us know which rights she thinks we “serfs” are going to be “allowed” to have under her administration, because at this rate, there will be none. Oh, wait, Demon-Rats like her are embracing Communism. Serfs never did have a single “right” under that kind of “leadership”. Or should I say “dictatorship”.

  11. Thats a strange looking animal, is thats its angry warning pose? Very scary, a bit of levity for such a terrifying creature, “if I had one of those for a pet I’d shave its ass and teach it to walk backwards”

  12. “….even publishing thoughts on social media. Those are freedoms endowed by our Creator….”

    This is something that gets so twisted around it’s no longer even funny. This is not a right endowed by our creator. This isn’t even a right. This is a capability given to the world by the companies that own/run social media. Just like the naive fallacy that email is private, everyone seems to think they actually have a ‘right’ to upload text for the world to see onto servers owned by someone else. That’s what black hat hackers do.

  13. Why not put a tax on vaccines? Oh, there already is a tax, an excise tax, paid by the consumer using the product, to cover the damages when the product itself causes injury or death…..because the public no longer has the right to sue the vaccine manufacturers when their products cause harm or death.

  14. In regard to the Senator’s arms related proposals, all of which are seemingly directed against the law abiding, one wonders as to why, does she realistically expect to be taken seriously by the vast majority of voters? I wonder.

  15. Everything about this woman is wrong. She spends her days making people uncomfortable with one cringeworthy situation after the other. World leaders would tear her apart if she was to become the president. Her anti gun agenda that supposedly would reduce gun violence by 80% is such a joke and actually makes that clown beto look weak on the left. If you have not read it I suggest you look it up. She’s even going after the disabled and our Veterans and thier arm braces for the AR Pistols. We need to get as many young people as we can involved in shooting sports and self defense shooting. The more of us the better to keep fighting for the 2nd Amendment.

  16. Supreme Court ruling Murdock v Pennsylvania, you cannot tax the exercise of a Right…..gun groups should know this ruling and use it to hammer these left wingers….

  17. Remember how Granny Warren pulled a cold beer out of the frig in that ad that was supposed to make her look more like an everyday sort of guy? I’d like to propose an ad where she walks over to her gun safe and pulls out a Bushmaster, and rips off thirty rounds through the living room wall. Then, in the same way the TV ad was acted out, she would ask her husband, “Hey Idiot, want to bust a few caps?”
    I think this would bring things down to the everyman level.

  18. About time to back up the short bus at the capital load them all ( Dems & Rep) for a long ride on a short pier. Will a capable honest adult please stand up. X

  19. It’s all pie in the sky bullshit. The Democrats are just pandering to the gun manufacturers for campaign money. Haven’t y’all figured it out yet. Even the looney left know disarming the citizens of this country would be an impossibility. The gun and ammo company’s in this country are laughing all the way to the bank.

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