Hey, according to John Roberts this is perfectly legitimate.
Public Finance
Gun Taxes and State Revenues
A handful of states and localities are considering gun and ammunition taxes. Is there any state and local revenue in this approach?
BY: Penelope Lemov | February 14, 2013
Penelope Lemov is a GOVERNING correspondent. She was GOVERNING’s health columnist and was senior editor for several award-winning features.
Bullet Tax Proposals Reemerge in Gun Control Debate
Last October, Cook County, Ill., Board President Toni Preckwinkle asked the county council to tax ammunition — a nickel a bullet. The idea wasn’t exactly laughed out of legislative corridors — it was projected to raise $400,000 a year after all — but Preckwinkle ultimately withdrew her bullet tax. She also pushed for a $25-per-gun tax on firearms sales. In February, that tax became law, with projections that it would raise $600,000 this year alone.
By passing the gun tax, Cook County, the third most populous county in the country (which also includes much of Chicago), became the first large U.S. jurisdiction to approve such a measure, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Preckwinkle’s motivation for both the gun and the ammunition taxes was to provide more money to help the county address the costly fallout from such crime. It costs the county’s health system $52,000 per patient to care for victims of gun violence — and last year there were 670 victims needing county care.
In that sense, Preckwinkle is linking a gun or ammunition tax to excise taxes, which usually redress specific societal costs associated with the product being assessed. In the eyes of three Harvard University professors, such a form of taxation has a long — and successful — public health history. “We tax items with negative externalities,” says Dr. David Hemenway, professor of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. Hemenway, along with two Harvard physicians, recently authored a paper in the Journal of American Medical Association called “Curbing Gun Violence: Lessons From Public Health Successes.”
http://www.governing.com/columns/public-finance/col-guns-money-states-localities-taxes.html