Gun tax floated as way to curb deaths
Proposed levy on semiautomatics would fund programs to prevent violence.
SACRAMENTO — Three weeks after a mass shooting killed 12 people at a Thousand Oaks bar, a state lawmaker on Wednesday proposed a new gun tax to fund violence-prevention programs in California.
Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) said he would introduce a bill to tax the sale of semiautomatic firearms, such as the .45-caliber Glock handgun used Nov. 7 in the deadly shooting at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks.
Levine cited the Thousand Oaks shooting and another in October that killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue as recent examples of gun violence that require more action, but said he had been trying to reduce shootings for years.
“The goal is fewer gun deaths,” Levine said. “The gun tax will support the kind of interventions that make gun violence less likely in the first place, which is exactly what we need to do.”
The proposal was criticized by Craig J. DeLuz, a spokesman for the Firearms Policy Coalition, which often opposes gun control laws.
“Taxing firearms is akin to a poll tax,” DeLuz said. “It’s fundamentally wrong to tax civil rights just because they are disfavored.”
Levine has not decided how large a tax to seek, but if California charges $25 in tax on each purchase as other jurisdictions have done, it could raise more than $5 million annually for the California Violence Intervention and Prevention Program.
About 900,000 firearms were purchased in California annually in recent years and the vast majority would be subject to the tax. Levine would exclude hunting rifles.
Last year, the program awarded about $8 million in grants to communities hit by gun violence for prevention programs.
California already has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country, including a Levine measure approved in 2016 that expanded a ban on assault rifles to include semiautomatic guns that have “bullet buttons” that allow quick removal and replacement of ammunition magazines.