We already know about New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, Illinois’ Governor J. B. Pritzker, and New Mexico’s Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and their machinations against the right to keep and bear arms. But now Democrats in the state of Washington have gotten into the act:
According to Jason Rantz of KTTH Radio, Washington Democrats hope to reclassify ammunition as a “privilege” to take away gun rights.
State Representatives My-Linh Thai and Liz Berry, both Democrats, introduced House Bill 2238. Using the guise of public safety, they claimed access to ammo is the cause of violence. The bill adds an 11% sales and use tax on top of sales tax and other taxes levied when purchasing ammunition.
For example, Seattle imposes a per-round tax.
The bill also claims consumers do not have a “right” to purchase ammo – it’s a “privilege.”
There’s no end to their cleverness. Ask any of them, and they’ll tell you, “Oh, of course we support the right to keep and bear arms.” Then comes the all-important but. Washington Democrats, if the two named above are representative, simply don’t want your firearms to be usable, except perhaps as clubs. But feel free to keep and bear them.
Washington is Democrat-dominated. Its governor, Jay Inslee, is a Democrat. So are its two United States Senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, six of its U. S. Congressmen, and a majority of its state-level legislators. So the bill cited here has a pretty good chance of becoming Washington state law – and of contradicting not only the federal Second Amendment but Washington’s state’s own constitution, which explicitly guarantees that the right to keep and bear arms “shall not be impaired.”
Despite the steadily multiplying reasons why Americans would want to be prepared to defend themselves, their families, and their property, the majority of the coastal and border states are trending in the anti-gun direction. The Supreme Court might strike down some of their incursions on the right to keep and bear arms, but the Democrats who dominate those states will simply pass other, differently worded laws, and enforce them until SCOTUS explicitly strikes them down too. That’s what’s already happened in New York and California.
There doesn’t seem to be a remedy that will last. The federal courts have no enforcement arm, by design. James Madison called them “the least dangerous branch” for that reason. Had he foreseen today’s state-level attacks on individuals’ rights, perhaps he might have felt differently.
By the way, it’s not just individuals’ rights as guaranteed by the Second Amendment that are under attack. New York has been passing “hate speech” laws. I don’t know if other states have done anything similar, but I wouldn’t bet against it.
Fellow Americans of the Evergreen State: I hope your ammo stocks on hand are adequate. The way things are trending in your state, you might soon have to use them to defend yourselves against the myrmidons determined to leave you helpless.
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This is like claiming that they have the “right” to free speech, but only on certain topics (can’t have scary-sounding opinions, because you might scare someone who is afraid of words – logophobia) and with a tax of a dime per word.
Meanwhile their private security forces will be exempt from any such limitations, because Shut Up, Peasant!
I live in a very red area of true-blue WA state. The practice seems to consider whatever CA has done as a “good start”. As a result, the left-wing seems determined to raise the ante and go one better.
What we have here is a typical scenario.
The bill mentioned by Fran states that purchasing ammunition is a state-granted “privilege”, like a driver’s license or buying tobacco products or alcohol. That translates to “We’ll let you buy the ammunition, as long as you pay a tax. For now.” What is not said is the the state may now be free to add more rules later by administrative action. Readers of this blog will recognize the “camel nose inside the tent” principle at work here.
The anti-gun fanatics are getting startd early in this legislative session. There are actually FIVE bills being proposed, all these are from moderate to highly anti-gun. All been put on a fast track legislative path.A first hearing is on Jan 16th is just a two days away from this writing, and is for major bills first published on Jan 8th. The fast track is by design, to overwhelm the ability of the citizens to respond accordingly and make their case heard.
The most pernicious of the five is a proposed law that saddles every FFL (Federal Firearm Licensee) in the state with an extremely high burden supposedly for “protecting the public from gun violence by establishing additional requirements for the business operations of licensed firearms dealers”. Of course we all know the authors care not one iota about the public; the law is aimed to burden the lawful gun owner and those who work in the firearms and shooting sports in any fashion they can get away with. If good, law abiding people lose their jobs or have to close their business, so much the better. Eggs and omelettes and all that stuff. I won’t try to summarize the law; it would take hundreds of words and raise my blood pressure a couple of notches.
Here is an excellent video summation from a WA based attorney, William Kirk, who dedicates his entire practice to protecting what is left of our 2nd Amendment rights. The video contains a link to the WA legislative web site if you wish to read the bills yourself. Mr. Kirk regularly publishes insightful opinions on other states (IL, NY, CA, CO etc) and federal activities as they may bear on local cases out here in the left coast, so maybe consider checking out his videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vXqttF462w
I would take them up on that. I would keep and bear my arms with my already purchased ammo – in schools, on airliners and the halls of Congress, without infringement.
I coulda sworn that the US Supreme Court found that ammo was covered under the Second and that taxes and restrictions intended to limit access obtaining ammo were invalid. Couldn’t find any articles stating that in a quick search with an ordinary browser. No longer have access to LexisNexis. I’m tired and insufficiently caffeinated, so I don’t know whether I’m remembering wrong or simply can’t put together a coherent search.
Well, now I have a second career running illicit ammunition over state lines.
The Second Amendment?
If we don’t (won’t?) use it, then we don’t need it.