Posted on 03/15/2013 9:40:20 AM PDT by EXCH54FE
A group of Chicago area gun dealers and owners filed a lawsuit Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court, aiming to halt a new $25 tax on every gun purchase in Cook County.
The special county tax doesn’t kick in until April 1, but Chuck’s Gun Shop in south suburban Riverdale — one of the better-known gun stores in the area — is among the plaintiffs asking a judge to order the county to hold its fire. The suit says the tax a violation of the right to bear arms.
“Proponents of the tax have admitted that its purpose is to curb the number of firearms in circulation. The Tax thus is intended to deter individuals from exercising their fundamental right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second and the Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and . . . the Illinois Constitution,” the lawsuit states.
The suit claims the tax infringes “on the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear, and law-abiding Retailers to sell, arms as guaranteed” by state and local constitutions.
“There’s enough taxes on those already — we pay a sales tax. [And] I had to pay $100 to qualify to purchase a gun — and I think I’ve paid enough,” said South Sider Deborah Gowder, referring to what she paid for a FOID permit just to purchase a gun.
She pushed the tax as a message about and a way to defray the costs of gun violence that county taxpayers must pick up, whether it’s because a gun case lands someone in the county’s criminal justice system . Preckwinkle also has repeatedly cited a study showing that about 30 percent of guns found at crime scenes in Chicago could be traced to suburban Cook County gun shops, where they were legally purchased.
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
What it is —is a blatant way to steal $25.00 from anyone who wants to purchase a gun.
They don’t plan to collect this from criminals. Only from law-abiding honest, non-violent citizens.
They deliberately plan to leave guns in the hands of violent criminals.
I said deliberately.
Given the SCOTUS ruling on Heller, affirming the the Second Amendment IS a right guaranteed by the Constitution, any fees or taxes associated with the purchase of a firearm would be no different than a “poll tax.”
Mark
Argue the case as a poll-tax and watch them gnash their teeth and wail at their hypocrisy (non-Right of voting = bad, Right to KaBA = good).
It’s the same as an illegal poll tax that the USSC has held infringed on the rights of the poor to vote.
Someone brought that up in the comments to the original article. Apparently no one understood what that meant as the usual stupid replies continued. Ignorance certainly CAN hurt you. I wonder what the reaction would be if if you tried to invoke your 5th Amendment rights and were told you’d have to pay a tax before you could do that?
I didn’t think Cook County allowed firearms purchases, as opposed to the rest of the other counties in the state?
i can hardly believe they are doing this only against straw purchasers. those would be the only criminals this would extract $25 from.
The irony is that Chicago pols have said the gun violence is due to those guns being smuggled into the city from outside. If nothing else, this tax will go a long way to Chicagoans buying guns outside of Cook County and bringing them home.
Liberals. Stupid laws create problems that they blame on fictitious causes, then they pass laws that make those fictions come true.
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