Critics fire back at Seattle gun, ammo tax they claim is aimed at killing business

[The Legion]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/05/24/critics-fire-back-at-seattle-gun-ammo-tax-claim-is-aimed-at-killing-business.html?intcmp=hpbt2

 

Published May 24, 2016

FoxNews.com

Mike Coombs feels like he is in the crosshairs of Seattle lawmakers, who this year implemented a special tax on the guns and ammo his Fourth Avenue store has sold for more than 40 years.

On January 1 Seattle began imposing a $25 tax on every gun and a 5-cent tax on every round sold within city limits. The stated objective was to raise up to $500,000 per year to fund programs to prevent gun violence. But Coombs claims the real effect is to kill his business, and a gun rights legal foundation is battling the city for figures it believes will show the law was never about taking in revenue.

“What they’re trying to do is get gun stores out of the city,” said Coombs, 48, whose Outdoor Emporium store operates in the shadow of Safeco Field and boasts of having “the largest selection of outdoor related products at affordable everyday warehouse pricing.”

Longtime customers have told Coombs they simply go outside the city now to buy firearms and ammunition rather than pay the tax, which he blames for the layoffs of two workers so far this year. Precise Shooter, a smaller gun shop in Seattle, moved 16 miles outside of the city to Lynnwood on the day the tax took effect.

“We feel that, basically, a crockpot politician was trying to buttress his 'progressive' credentials and we got run over,” owner Sergey Solyanik told MyNorthwest.com.

Solyanik was referring to Seattle City Council President Tim Burgess, who drafted the law providing for the so-called “gun violence tax.” The City Budget Office estimated the gun violence tax would collect between $300,000 to $500,000 a year, which Burgess said would fund gun violence prevention programs and medical research.

Burgess and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, who also supported the tax, declined to comment when contacted by FoxNews.com. Pro gun control groups say the tax is justified.

"[Seattle] has every right to tax products that are causing public safety/public health issues in its jurisdiction," said Ladd Everitt, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. "The medical and legal costs associated with gun violence are astronomical and I don’t see any foul play in asking gun buyers to help bear some of these costs alongside taxpayers who choose not to own guns."

Solyanik said his small business previously generated about $50,000 per year in city sales tax. With Precise Shooter's move out of the city, Seattle will lose those funds and collect nothing from the new tax, he said.

The Second Amendment Foundation and the National Shooting Sports Foundation sued the city, claiming the tax violates state law, which gives the Washington State Legislature sole power to regulate registration, licensing, possession, purchase, sale, acquisition, transfer, discharge and transportation of firearms. A Superior Court judge sided with the city, and the case has now been appealed to the intermediate court.

“Seattle is arguing that this is a tax, not a regulation,” Second Amendment Foundation Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb said. “But it’s a specific tax on a specific item, which falls back to being gun control because it is only a tax on guns.”

The plaintiffs have filed Freedom of Information Act requests to determine how much revenue has been brought in by the tax, and the city has so far declined to turn over the information. The plaintiffs also believe the real numbers would show the tax has brought in far less than was projected, which would undermine the city’s claim that it was instituted to generate revenue for gun violence programs.

Cook County, Ill., implemented a similar tax on guns April 1, 2013. Beginning next month, the county, which includes Chicago, will impose a tax on ammunition as well.

Second Amendment backers believe overturning Seattle’s tax is key to stopping more cities from implementing gun and ammunition taxes they say are simply a pretext for driving out gun shops.

“We do not intend to sit idly by and allow taxes against the Second Amendment,” Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told Fox News. “We are aware that gun control advocates view this as a new weapon in their effort to trample upon the Second Amendment and try to drive law-abiding firearm retailers out of business.”

Edited May 24, 2016 by The Legion

[Grand Torino]

While I think the whole deal is a crock of...well you know...left leaning places like Seattle and Crapcago will continue to punish 2nd Amendment businesses with the insane notion that this nonsense will keep them safe. Ask Crapcago how well it's worked for them. 2nd Amendment users will just go out of vthe city limits to conduct business or leave those crapholes entirely.

I have a close friend who was born and raised in Seattle and this BS was the last straw for them. They sold their beautiful home and moved to Montana. He tells me the small town he moved to has families from Seattle (4) SF, Portland, Crapcago (7), NY and other similar hell holes to escape the crazy left.

Honestly as long as you have libtards in charge of places they will continue to run decent folks out of town. My friend also tells me they are having an explosion of homeless moving to Seattle as well. Let the left pay their way.

 

[Pete123]

This story reminded me of my time living in Atlanta.  

Seattle hosted the G7, leaders of the seven most prosperous countries.  The protesters usually hit these things as the world is watching and they get air time.

The protesters in Seattle turned into vandals and looters and tore Seattle all to pieces, no telling how many millions of dollars of damage they inflicted. 

A meeting soon after that was held near Savannah GA.  A friend of mine was an agent with the Ga Bureau of Investigation.  

The short story is that the vandals and looters didn't even come to GA because GA has a reputation of not putting up with that crap.

In short, Seattle is setting itself up to get what it deserves.  

Same thing with Hawaii, which hopes to become the first state to require that law abiding gun owners to register in a Federal database.  One impact of that database is that if police anywhere in the US pull them up, it shows that they are part of that database.

Of course, gun owners will have to pay to be put in the database.

 

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Hawaii could be first to put gun owners in federal database

By MARINA STARLEAF RIKER

 

May. 24, 2016 6:42 AM EDT

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FILE - In this May 10, 2016, file photo, Jerry Ilo holds a gun that he uses to teach the Hawaii... Read more

HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii could become the first state in the United States to enter gun owners into an FBI database that will automatically notify police if an island resident is arrested anywhere else in the country.

Most people entered in the "Rap Back" database elsewhere in the U.S. are those in "positions of trust," such as school teachers and bus drivers, said Stephen Fischer of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division. Hawaii could be the first state to add gun owners.

"I don't like the idea of us being entered into a database. It basically tells us that they know where the guns are, they can go grab them" said Jerry Ilo, a firearm and hunting instructor for the state. "We get the feeling that Big Brother is watching us."

Supporters say the law would make Hawaii a leader in safe gun laws. Allison Anderman, a staff attorney at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said the bill was "groundbreaking," and that she hadn't heard of other states introducing similar measures.

Sen. Will Espero, who introduced the bill, and the Honolulu Police Department said Hawaii could serve as a model for other states if it becomes the first to enact the law.

Yet others say gun owners shouldn't have to be entered in a database to practice a constitutional right.

"You're curtailing that right by requiring that a name be entered into a database without doing anything wrong," said Kenneth Lawson, faculty at the University of Hawaii's William S. Richardson School of Law.

Legal experts say the bill could face challenges, but would probably hold up in court. Recent Supreme Court rulings have clarified states' ability to regulate gun sales, said David Levine, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

The bill will undergo a legal review process by departments including the Attorney General's Office, which supported the bill, before Gov. David Ige decides if he will sign it into law, said Cindy McMillan, a spokeswoman for the governor.

The cost to enter names in the database will be covered by a fee paid by gun owners, which wasn't defined in the bill.

Even though other states don't enter gun owners in the database, Honolulu Police Department Maj. Richard Robinson said it will still benefit Hawaii police. Right now, Hawaii gun owners undergo a background check only when they register a gun, so police have no way of knowing if they're disqualified from owning a gun in the future unless they try to register a new firearm.

"We were only discovering things by accident," said Robinson, who helped draft the bill. "They happen to come register another firearm, we run another background check, and then we find out they're a prohibited person."

That happens about 20 times each year, he said.

Some local gun owners say the law confirms their fear that the government would know exactly who and where people keep their firearms.

"This is an extremely dangerous bill. Exercising a constitutional right is not inherently suspicious," said Amy Hunter for the National Rifle Association. "Hawaii will now be treating firearms as suspect and subject to constant monitoring."