Tip of the Ice Berg

Open letter to the City of Seattle, Washington:

Dear Seattle;

(Image courtesy of CNS NEWS)

It’s common sense for Seattle to tax gun sales to study violence | The Seattle Times:

Washington’s law prohibits the regulation of firearms by local governments, but Seattle is within its authority to impose fees to pay for a public-health crisis caused by gun violence. A $25 tax on each firearm sold within the city is reasonable, as is a 2-cent- or 5-cent-per-round tax for various types of ammunition. The city is so serious about tackling this problem, it plans to pay for research and prevention even if the court sides with the gun-rights coalition. But the city shouldn’t have to. If Seattle gets this right, other cities should also pitch in to solve this public-health crisis.

(All emphasis added by me)

Reasonable.  By your standards, perhaps.
Unconstitutional, by the Second Amendment.


When your article inserts the word "but ...", it's a tacit acknowledgement that you're advocating a measure which undermines the civil rights of your readership.  And you know it.  You just think that your readers are so stupid, or so already-in-your-court, that you can say ANYTHING and your readers will accept it.   Because they trust you.

You are trading in the trust of your customers, undermining their rights, and you have such disdain for them that you assume they won't notice your goal ... which is to serve them up for the dinner which is your political masters.

There is nothing new in your plan to impose "reasonable, common sense measures"
(BZZZT! Bullshit Alert!) for benign administrative purposes.

New York Senator  Daniel Patrick Moynihan had the same idea in 1993 when he proposed a 10,000% tax on ammunition.

November 04, 1993|By John Fairhall | John Fairhall,Washington BureauWASHINGTON -- Demanding action to stop the country's epidemic of violence, a powerful Senate chairman declared yesterday that his panel would make handgun control an integral part of health care reform by drastically increasing the tax on bullets.
Finance Committee Chairman Daniel Patrick Moynihan said the panel would build into health reform legislation such a huge increase in ammunition taxes that the most destructive types of bullets would effectively be taxed "out of existence."
The New York Democrat introduced a measure yesterday -- which he would incorporate into a health care reform bill later on -- that would impose a 100-fold increase in the tax on certain bullets and a 50 percent tax on all other handgun ammunition, with the exception of .22 caliber rimfire bullets used in target shooting. The current tax is 11 percent of the manufacturers' ammunition price.


His legislation also would slap a $10,000 "occupational tax" on manufacturers and importers of handgun ammunition.

But Moynihan, then, was more honest than Seattle is now:

• Mr. Moynihan said he believed the new taxes could raise as much as $1 billion. The current federal tax on ammunition, combined with federal taxes on handguns, shotguns and rifles, generated $143 million in 1992, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

• But the senator said his major goal was not to raise revenue but to tax "out of existence" ammunition "which has the sole purpose destroying bodies."

... while you, Seattle, dodge the issue by suggesting that "... it's common sense to tax gun sales ..." for whatever transparent excuse you choose to employ.

In truth, Seattle Times, and Seattle Washington, you just want to tax ammunition (and firearms .. both of which are legal products) "out of existence".

This proposition for a tax on the Second Amendment is like putting a frog in a crock-pot; if the water is initially only 'warm', the frog won't notice that sooner or later it's being boiled.

Why do you advocate this?
Because you can!

Is it any wonder that Americans have increasingly demonstrated that they no longer trust their government, but fear it?  This happens when the Government which they have elected has turned against the best interests of their constituents ... or should we say "Subjects"? ... to further a Political Goal?