Meet Jon Grant. The community organizer (his words) and political activist wants a seat on the Seattle city council. Among his social justice warrior campaign planks is one to double Seattle’s gun and ammo tax. Like many economic illiterates before him, Mr. Grant apparently believes that doubling the tax on gun sales in the city will double the tax collections.
From his campaign website, under “gun safety”:
Seattle won a significant victory in the courts against our national gun violence epidemic, once again leading the nation where the federal government will not. In an 8-1 decision our State Supreme Court upheld our city’s gun violence tax which funds critical public health research. However, in the year since it was implemented it has become clear the law does not go far enough. The revenue created hit less than half its projected goal and therefore the tax on guns and ammunition must be doubled to fulfill our promise to adequately fund critical research on gun violence.
Why is Grant so excited to fund “critical research on gun violence”?
Doubling the gun tax to $50 per gun sale, and .10 cents per ammunition round can get us to our goal of raising a half million dollars so Harborview Medical can expand its gun violence prevention research. We can not kowtow to the National Rifle Association’s threats in the same way Congress has since 1996 to ban research funding on gun violence. We have arrived at a crisis level now too many times like at Sandy Hook, Orlando, and Cafe Racer.
So gun violence research will somehow prevent a mentally ill social misfit from killing his mother and stealing her guns to go murder school children (at a gun-free zone)?
Mr. Grant, please tell us how gun violence research will help stop Muslim terror attacks like the one at The Pulse nightclub in Orlando. You guessed it – a gun-free zone.
Or how research would have saved the lives of the four people killed at Cafe Racer in Seattle when a whack job decided to go on a rampage (at a gun-free zone). Not to mention the fifth victim he killed when trying to carjack a Mercedes.
So is Mr. Grant really so ignorant of basic human behavior that he actually thinks doubling the city’s tax will result in twice the revenue? Anything’s possible, of course. Maybe he thinks that people wishing to buy guns and ammo can’t simply driving out of his city to make those purchases.
No matter how hard you try, you can’t repeal the laws of economics. The shortfall in anticipated revenue the city reluctantly reported serves as just more evidence that markets adjust to taxes.