President Toni Preckwinkle.
Photo via Chicago Tribune.
by John Boch
Sources tell Guns Save Life that Democrat Cook County Board President Toni Preckwickle will announce a proposed ammo tax Monday morning in Chicago.
The tax, set at one penny per round of rimfire, and five cents per round for centerfire cartridges, will be sold to the media and low-information voters as “paying for gun violence”.
This is particularly ironic as the Democrat Cook County States’ Attorney Anita Alvarez is in large part responsible for the violence in Chicago because she won’t prosecute violent criminals and demand long prison sentences.
In Cook County, if you’re three young black thugs shooting into a crowd with three guns – one of which is an AR-15 – and you wound two, you get charged with a Class 4 felony punishable with a prison sentence of one to three years.
In Cook County, if you’re a felon illegally carrying a concealed handgun in your purse and you shoot at people on a busy street at 2a.m. – and miss the people you’re shooting at – you get charged with a misdemeanor.
Contrast that in Florida where if you use a gun in the commission of a violent crime, you automatically get a ten-year sentence enhancement. There’s no negotiating that away in the plea process. Discharge that firearm in Florida and you go bye bye for twenty additional years. If you hit someone with gunfire while committing a violent crime, it’s an automatic 25-year sentence minimum. Unlike Illinois, There’s real prison time associated with using a firearm while committing a violent crime in Florida.
In the Sunshine State, all four of these individuals would be gone for a generation, not probation or a few month stint in an air conditioned cell in the Illinois Department of Corrections. That’s probably why Florida enjoys its lowest rate of firearm violent crime IN HISTORY. And why Chicago is Chicago when it comes to its reputation for constant, horrific violent crime.
Florida firearm violence hits record low; concealed gun permits up
(Naples Daily News) – In the so-called Gunshine State, home to the most gun permits in the country, firearm violence has fallen to the lowest point on record.
As state and national legislators consider gun control laws in the wake of last month’s Connecticut school shooting, Florida finds itself in a gun violence depression. The Firearm-involved violent crime rate has dropped 33 percent between 2007 and 2011, while the number of issued concealed weapons permits rose nearly 90 percent during that time, state records show.
“We’re happy to have facts and statistics put into these debates, because every time they do, we win,” said Sean Caranna, executive director of Florida Carry Inc., a pro-gun-rights advocacy group.
It will (likely) be modeled after the Seattle ammo tax – which the City of Seattle is now defending in court. It took less than two weeks after passage for a suit to be filed against that city’s new unlawful tax.
Obviously we are opposed to such a proposal, for a host of reasons, not the least of which is that we see this as just the beginning of ever-increasing taxes on a Constitutional right. In fact, we see this as nothing more than a poll tax on shooting.
What’s more, it puts gun dealers and retailers in Cook County at a tremendous disadvantage to mail-order sellers, as well as shops outside of Cook County.
The tax sounds fairly modest, until one realizes that it’s effectively an additional 20-25% tax on ammunition. What’s more, for affordable practice handgun ammo, it’s approaching an additional 50% tax rate.
And for a 1000-round case, like the one pictured, it would represent an additional $50 added to the purchase price. If you think that a $50 differential between a shop in Cook County and a shop a block outside of Cook County won’t make someone drive a few miles (or pick up the phone and place a mail order), you’re a fool.
Then again, perhaps that’s the goal of Preckwinkle and her gun-grabbing, soft-on-crime Democrat crew. They don’t like guns and they don’t like stores that sell that which protects and defends what Americans love.
Should Cook County pass this bill, and we don’t see why they wouldn’t, then non-Cook County residents should lobby their legislators to vote “NO” on any bills set to benefit Cook County. And to lobby our Governor to veto any bills that solely benefit “Ammo Tax” County.
The crook county board has spent too much time chewing on the lead paint. Between crook and chiraq taxes, I have to wonder how high the percentage is? Those morons think the bangers will pay a tax on ammo they can’t buy? They want the state to bail them out! Maybe they need a tax on crime, commit a crime pay the tax? The crook county board might think they could collect it..
Stupid is as stupid does.
Low info voters elect low info pols.
It will pass. Legitimate ammo buyers will go out of town to buy. The city’s businesses will no longer sell ammo. Mission accomplished.
It will pass and they will spend a lot of money defending it.
Any chance GSL might join a suit to strike it down?
I hope so! 2nd Amendment Foundation would be another good resource to help fight this.
Of course it will pass. Though BLATANTLY and PATENTLY unconstitutional, it will pass. It’s cook county. Look at the bright, intelligent look in the eyes of the fearless leader of the board! Yeah, I’m not sure the light was EVER on in those eyes.
It is tantamount to imposing a tax on the Chicago Tribune of $.01 per WORD PUBLISHED. WOuld/could the First Amendment ever tolerate that? No, not for one moment.
This is IMPOSING a tax on the exercise of what the supreme court has now AFFIRMED is an individual & constitutional right.
It’ll be struck down, asap.
CAN YOU PRICKS FIGURE MORE WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LEAVE YOUR STATE??? I LEFT!
Just one more reason to NEVER go to Chicago.
I fear president Sparkle Farts will use this as a precedent to push for a Federal ammo tax. I am sure he has been dying to make that Chris Rock joke policy since he was first elected.
Low intelligent politicians continue to show their lack of knowledge. Criminals and their families who vote for these low information politicians encourage these criminals laws. Because law abiding citizens are always the targets, since they follow the laws they are the ones targeted. Criminals who do not will not be impacted. Law abiding citizens if smart will just go outside the county to buy ammo and bypass this stupid law
Fixing Chicago problems the Chicago way never worked and never will.
The problem of going outside the county to buy ammo and avoid the tax will be the same as buying a car in the areas surrounding Springfield and Sangamon county. For every car we’ve bought, they verified we don’t live in Springfield and are trying to avoid the extra sales tax. Watch for them to get the legislature to enforce it statewide. If you are a Crook county resident you may end up paying the tax anywhere in the state.
That’d be a typical example of a law INTENDED to raise revenue that actually COSTS MORE to administer than it could ever bring in. Another reason why it’ll be either struck down or repealed.
Fork em. I’ll mail order mine.
Cheaper, no sales tax AND they carry it to my front door.
This is just another money grab for a county littered with corruption and fiscal irresponsibility. The problem with this new “tax” besides violating the second amendment, is the money will never be used for anything close to making our streets safer. This money will be funneled in to other funds to plug the holes these politicians continue to create by promising things to their constituents that they don’t have the money to pay for. Toni Preckwinkle is constantly trying to create new sources to tax while doing nothing to reduce the spending in Cook County. She is the Taxing Queen and this needs to stop.
Vote these retards out.
Too many retards vote for retards. And we get retards running the asylum.
The county is out of money and ideas. She is at a loss as to where to scare up some more revenue. The idea of bringing in COMMERCE apparently escapes her…. While the jails are emptied, her goal is to get the population of 15 thousand down to half that….. saving the county millions in the process….
but where do those former jailbirds go? What do they do?
Same nonsense that got them locked up.
And we wonder why the violence continues to grow….
Wouldn’t the Firearm Concealed Carry Act preempt any tax like this? I thought that gun regulations of any sort were the exclusive power of the State.