David Hogg wants a federal tax on firearms and ammunition. Uh. David… That’s very old news! READ MORE
SOURCE: NRA-ILA
David Hogg has repeatedly broached the idea of taxing firearms and ammunition, including multiple times on Twitter, and only sometimes suggests a use for the tax revenue. Hogg’s tweets on a federal gun tax include references to implementing the same sort of licensing and permitting requirements as the government requires to drive a car or funding “gun violence” research.
We’ve previously addressed the problem with comparing “gun violence” and motor vehicle accidents or smoking, and the problem with anti-gun research, so we’ll focus exclusively on Hogg’s tax idea.
Except it isn’t Hogg’s idea. The idea of a tax on firearms and ammunition predates Hogg by about a hundred years. A moment on Google would have shown Mr. Hogg as much.
The Firearms and Ammunition Excise Tax (FAET) was first imposed in 1919. In 1937, the Pittman-Robertson Act directed all revenue from FAET and related excise taxes to be used for hunting-related activities. The FAET includes a 10% tax on the sale price of pistols and revolvers and 11% of the sale price of other firearms and ammunition, and 11% tax on archery equipment. The tax is applied whether or not the equipment is likely to be used for hunting. The U.S. Department of the Treasury Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau provides an informative reference guide, and the Congressional Research Service compiled a report on the tax and relevant legislative proposals just this past March.
The Pittman-Robertson Act funds acquisition and improvement of wildlife habitat, introduction of wildlife into suitable habitat, research into wildlife problems, surveys and inventories of wildlife problems, acquisition and development of access facilities for public use, and hunter education programs, including construction and operation of public target ranges.
More than $12 billion has been collected under the Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937, including more than $761 million in fiscal year 2017 alone. Revenues from the tax are placed into the Wildlife Restoration Trust Fund and distributed to the states and U.S. territories.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry trade association, put together an informative video about how the excise tax supports conservation efforts and an infographic showing how the money collected from under the Act has impacted species. Spoiler alert: the white-tailed deer population went from 500,000 in 1900 to 32 million today, and the waterfowl population grew from few to 44 million. There are similar success stories for other species, all made possible through the excise tax on firearms and ammunition.
The Firearms and Ammunition Excise Tax is public information, as is the distribution of funds. Awareness of the tax may be low, but that doesn’t make the tax any less real. More than three-quarters of a billion dollars was collected last year; such an amount does not go unnoticed, particularly by the state wildlife agencies that depend on that funding for research and conservation efforts.
Mr. Hogg and others who want a federal tax on firearms and ammunition, would be well-served by spending a bit of time researching an idea before they start issuing demands.
As per usual his mouth was opened before doing any research. We need to completely ignore this fool and stop giving him free air time.
You are right. Hogg has a habit of engaging his mouth before putting his brain in gear. Who cares what he wants anyway. Maybe after he joins the military and realizes what is really going on in the world his thinking might change about guns.
He’s like a baby Robin…… All mouth & ass! He probably wants a cut of those taxes!
Spencer: he and the anti-gun bunch want it raised leaps & bounds to make them monetarily prohibitive for the legal use by the general public (much like “choke point”) to decimate the firearms industry. They care not the means used to achieve disarming private ownership entirely.
Even back in the 70s politicians were advocating passing laws allowing people to sue firearms manufacturers.
That’s like passing a law to sue car manufacturers automobile accidents.
You’re right!
Mr. Hogg is a prime example of our failed education system. He was never taught to think.
Zupglick: not so… a prime example of an education system intent upon educating young minds that guns are evil, bad and not needed in private hands; they’ve left military and law enforcement alone for now. Their end game is to have a general populace turned to the point that the 2nd Amendment can be quietly abolished without any opposition.
I agree whole heartedly. As you said plus,
not what the think,
Our educational system has been doing this for years. Even since I started in grade school in 1947 & most likely before before.
Just “my little pony” brigade trying to get someone else to do their dirty work!!
Dolf, as i like to call him, loves those headlines. I read somewhere Dolf was not accepted by any of the collages of his choice. He may have some sort learning disorder like reading or such. At any rate he’ll make a good pool boy for Nancy Pelosi.
David Hogg is not interested in acquiring an answer to crime, what he is doing is getting on a band wagon that is in front of the public and is very hot. This allows him a lot of free press which will serve him well when he starts on his political career, just wait and see.
The left and people of Hogg’s mentality fail in a lot of areas not just with their oral cavity. To compare vehicles and “guns” as some how the same from a tax control implement is, in a word, ridiculous. The second amendment is a “RIGHT” and THEREFORE NOT taxable whereas vehicles are a privilege and as you can see privileges are taxes to death.
Just saying.
Well David, i want a tax on dips***s from a failed government education system to pay for more private schools. Ha
So are these mentally ill idiots seriously looking to start Revolutionary War 2.0? I’m not sure if they are more ignorant or arrogant but certainly both. The tyrannical ideology and contemputous actions of these people has to stop!
Hogg has never had an original thought/idea yet. He steals other people’s and presents them as his own. Lets see how that works out for him in college!
This A** Clown really took advantage of his High School education. Don’t they teach students how to use an internet searching tool? I bet he is really going to do well in this world. One of those guys that takes his date back to his parents house when he’s 32 and shows his date the basement….yep, this is where I live. Yeah, he will live the LOSER lifestyle.
Typical Left Wing Putz.
Does not have a clue regarding the law?
Up is nose, it is?
Doesn’t he resemble some characters from the” Animal Farm” movie?
He looks more like the hit song “… an angry young man…”
Angry he can’t get his way…