NSSF Update

A

Aguila Blanca

Staff
For those who may not recognize the acronym, "NSSF" is the National Shooting Sports Foundation -- the folks who bring us the SHOT Show every January. As a media member of the NSSF, I receive their periodic e-mail blasts, and the one that arrived today was a doozie. Unfortunately, I can't find most of the articles on their web site and they are copyrighted, so I can't reproduce them here in their entirety. Together, they make for a sobering wake-up call.

Excerpts:

Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) pushed for increased gun control in separate televised CNN town hall events prior to Nevada's Democratic debate and Presidential primary.

Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun control group bankrolled by billionaire presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, is treading lightly with its benefactor. Everytown distanced itself from Bloomberg’s recently surfaced comments about his “stop and frisk” program he supervised as the New York City mayor. https://www.nssf.org/everytown-distances-bloomberg-comments-but-addicted-to-his-billions/

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) filed companion bills, S. 3299 and H.R. 5917 respectively, in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives that would undermine the Tiahrt Amendment, which protects firearms tracing data from being made public.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) recently introduced, S. 3254, the Gun Violence Prevention and Community Safety Act, which is a 261-page amalgamation of every poor gun control notion she’s concocted and a few other borrowed ideas.

Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun control group funded by billionaire Presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, is planning an $8 million spend in the Lone Star State to do there what they did in Virginia.


Please buckle your seat belts and remain seated. We are expecting turbulence ahead.
 
I received another e-mail blast from the NSSF today. The current panic du jour is a proposed bill in Connecticut (again -- it happens that the NSSF is headquartered in Connecticut, but that's just coincidence) to impose a 35 percent excise tax on ammunition. That's in addition to Connecticut 6.35 percent sales tax.

I believe excise taxes are lumped in with the purchase price, and the sales tax then whacks the whole enchilada. If that's correct, people would be paying a 6.35% sales tax on the 35% excise tax, which effectively raises the overall tax to 43.6 percent.

There will be a committee hearing on the bill Thursday, February 27, in Hartford. If there are any Connecticut residents here, try to make it. If you can't get to Hartford to testify against it, submit written testimony. The NSSF provided a link to the CCDL web site to make it as easy as possible:

Our friends over at CCDL created this easy to follow guide to submit testimony for the hearing. In order to find your local legislator please use this link.

Submitting Written Testimony

Step 1 . . . Subject line of email:
. . . . . . . .Testimony in Opposition to HB 5040

Step 2 . . . Prepare your testimony as a word or PDF document. Include your name and town.

Step 3 . . . Email: fintestimony@cga.ct.gov

Step 4 . . . CC: your Senator and House Rep

Step 5 . . . *Testimony must be sent as an attachment.
Click to expand...

If you go to testify, or if you submit written comments, for God's sake DON'T MENTION RELOADING! You'll just wake them up and they'll add reloading components to the bill. Oppose the bill, but don't give them anything to use against us. Remember that Connecticut adopted a "ghost guns" bill last year. If people had kept their mouths shut about 80% receivers, there wouldn't be any ghost guns laws to worry about.

Keep your brain engaged!
 
Our friends over at CCDL created this easy to follow guide to submit testimony for the hearing. In order to find your local legislator please use this link.

Submitting Written Testimony

Step 1 . . . Subject line of email:
. . . . . . . .Testimony in Opposition to HB 5040

Step 2 . . . Prepare your testimony as a word or PDF document. Include your name and town.

Step 3 . . . Email: fintestimony@cga.ct.gov

Step 4 . . . CC: your Senator and House Rep

Step 5 . . . *Testimony must be sent as an attachment.
Click to expand...
Seems like an awful lot of stuff to do for mere problems that don't infringe on anything....

(and yes - that's just dripping with sarcasm)
 
to impose a 35 percent excise tax on ammunition. That's in addition to Connecticut 6.35 percent sales tax.
Click to expand...

Plus, if I'm not mistaken (and I really might be mistaken on this legal point) there has been the 11% tax, the Pittman–Robertson Act, since 1937 providing money to wildlife conservation efforts.
 
Plus, if I'm not mistaken (and I really might be mistaken on this legal point) there has been the 11% tax, the Pittman–Robertson Act, since 1937 providing money to wildlife conservation efforts.
Click to expand...

That tax is added at the wholesale price, and is today also added to archery and fishing goods.

As far as special taxes on ammunition, while I'm no legal expert, I have heard of this being proposed and "shot down" before, something to do with a SOCTUS ruling about "freedom of the press" and a tax on printer's ink, or a poll tax and voting.

simply put, if you make a tax that "infringes" on a right, there is legal precedent against it.

They can propose it, but the courts will (and should) render it moot.

Of course, that was back in the 20th century, some folks think things should be different, now...:rolleyes:
 
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