The following is an article that I received from The Outdoor Wire, an electronic newsletter for outdoor writers. If you live in Kalifornia, you should be contacting your elected representatives ASAP. I quote,
"The Pasadena, Calif., Star-News reports in its Sunday, June 1, 2003 issue that the California State Assembly is considering a "sin tax" of ten cents per round on all ammunition sold in California. A "sin tax" is a tax levied on activities that legislators consider to be harmful to society. Other activities paying "sin taxes" include smoking, drinking and gambling.
The California Assembly's Appropriations Committee passed AB992 last week, and it appears headed to the floor for a vote. According to the bill's sponsors, it would raise money to help reimburse shooting victims and help pay their health-care costs. Both academics and firearm enthusiasts describe the concept of a "sin tax" as another attempt by legislators to force their personal values of "right" and "wrong" onto taxpayers. In the Star-News report, Dan Palm, a political science professor at Azuza (CA) Pacific State, says the concept of a "sin tax" victimizes politically unpopular minority groups, and in the cases of smoking, drinking and gambling, forces the government to become fiscally dependent on behavior it's supposed to be discouraging.
Plus, Palm says, sin taxes put legislators in the position of determining right and wrong. "Once you start doing that," he says, "the government becomes something above and beyond what the American founders thought it should be."
The bill's author, Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas, says ammunition qualifies for a sin tax because "guns are even more harmful to society than tobacco and alcohol. Alcohol and cigarettes are not, by design, made to do harm. Guns are."
Should this bill pass, it would increase the price of a 50-round box of ammunition by five dollars per box, i.e., a $9 box of ammunition would increase to $14 per box.
Gun lobbyist Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, said 99.99 percent of all bullets are used safely and legally. But, Paredes said, AB 992 unfairly blames gun owners for all firearms-related injuries."
