Posted on 03/29/2002 2:03:40 PM PST by gc4nra
Political Editor Randy Shandobil for KTVU Channel 2 News
Target practice could soon get a lot more expensive. Next week a Bay Area state senator will formally propose a five-cent-a-bullet sales tax. Not five percent, but a nickel for each and every round.
Shoot a small caliber weapon, such as a .22? That more than doubles the price of your ammo.
Sen. Don Perata/(D) Oakland : "I will be attacked by those who hate gun control. I know that. As soon as this airs, I am going to start getting nasty phone calls and email."
Senator Don Perata is a gun control crusader. But he says his tax idea is not meant to deter gun use, but rather to raise money to save California's hospital trauma centers, some of which are going under.
"Bullets cause injuries that are expensive to treat and generally speaking, the public is footing the bill."
Perata wants the legislature to put the tax idea on the November ballot.
Peter Buxtun/NRA Member: "This idea is stupidity."
National Rifle Association member Peter Buxtun says previous gun control measures by Senator Perata put many gun dealers out of business, and he says a nickel a bullet tax would just lead to ammo smuggling. Buxtun: "People would go to Oregon, they would go to Nevada and they would load up the trunks of their car or their whole van and bring tons of ammunition in."
At the Jackson Arms Shooting Range in South San Francisco today, most customers did not want to talk on camera... but everyone said the tax would be unfair. They don't shoot people, they shoot targets.
Sen. Perata: "I am sorry. You cannot screen them out. The same way that someone with a perfect driving record is going to be upset that they pay an added cost for emergency care."
Democrats control both the state senate and the state assembly, so Senator Perata is confident a majority of lawmakers will support the tax. But that doesn't mean it will qualify for the November ballot.
For a ballot measure to qualify, two thirds of the legislature has to say yes, not a simple majority.
Buxtun: "We'll absolutely fight this as hard as we can."
If it does qualify, it could become a hot button issue in the Governor's race. Aides to Republican Bill Simon, who earns an A rating from the NRA, say he would be against it. Governor Davis is taking no position yet. He has signed many gun control bills, but says he's against tax hikes.
-- Political Editor Randy Shandobil, KTVU Channel 2 News
© 2002 KTVU-TV
Tic tic tic.....
Trying to talk my wife into Idaho for retirement. Her sister is in Hailey, but she doesn't like the cold.
That won't work because abortions are paid for with tax dollars. How about a 1 million dollar a week tax on all DNC leaders. Then we could have all the guns and ammo we wanted to carry, and no abortions. We could tax the DNC out of being.
It's a damn good thing he hasn't heard of cars or fatty foods yet. (Or was Perata the jerk who proposed a fast-food tax over its fat content causing heart disease?)
Could you imagine what kind of tax Perata would want on cars - over all car-related police, EMT, and hospital costs?
? It would be like hitting the lottery! LOL!
Your bullet tax is a miss placed idea.
Better you place an additional tax on condoms. After all sex causes MILLIONS in MEDICAL bills a year, not to mention it swells the welfare rolls.
Also while your at it KEEP your criminals locked up. Each year the government releases to parole and probation hundreds of thousands of inmates. Guess what 62.5% go out and commit more crimes including homicides.
A 1991 parole and probation report from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 45% of State prisoners were persons who, at the time they committed their offense, were under conditional supervision in the community--either on probation or on parole. Probation and Parole Violators in State Prison, 1991: Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991 http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/ppvsp91.txt
Based on the offense that brought them to prison, the 162,000 probation violators committed at least 6,400 murders, 7,400 rapes, 10,400 assaults, and 17,000 robberies while under supervision in the community an average of 17 months. Based on the offense that brought parolees back to prison, these 156,000 offenders committed at least 6,800 murders, 5,500 rapes, 8,800 assaults, and 22,500 robberies while under supervision in the community an average of 13 months.
That’s 13,200 homicides, 12,900 rapes, 19,200 assaults, and 39,500 robberies for a total of 84,800 violent crimes that would NOT have been committed if these UNREGISTERED, UNLICENSED government supervised felons had been in prison where they belonged.
Better yet you DUMB politicians who keep letting criminals out early and putting them on probation instead of locking them up or executing them, ought to be taxed $2.7 Million dollars each for every criminal you let out of prison early on parole or place on probation to offset the 13,200 homicides and the 12,900 rapes committed by UNLICENSED, UNREGISTERED, GOVERNMENT SUPERVISED CONVICTED FELONS.
Mother of a Child MURDERED by one of those placed on probation,
Gail Keasling
If they're taxing the right to bear arms, why not the right to free speech?
Perata's continuing onslaught of anti-gun laws is one of many reasons I left California for Idaho. Many of my high tech colleagues like to shoot as well. I may yet have a means of encouraging the growth of a high tech sector in my little town in Idaho.
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