BELLEVUE, WA. – Seattle’s “gun violence tax” revenue has once again failed to meet predictions, demonstrating once again that this was really a thinly disguised gun control scheme that was sold to the public as an effort to reduce so-called “gun violence,” the Second Amendment Foundation said today.
Figures released by the city under a Public Records Act request by the senior editor of SAF’s monthly magazine TheGunMag.com show the city collected $93,220.74 last year, a decline of nearly $10,000 from the amount collected in 2016 and far below the $300,000 to $500,000 revenue originally predicted by its proponents on the Seattle City Council when the tax was hastily passed almost three years ago.
“Once again,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “Seattle’s pie-in-the-sky gun tax revenue forecast has been proven to be a complete failure, essentially like other gun control fantasies. The revenue data only reinforces our claim in a lawsuit against the tax that this was a gun control scheme to drive firearm sales and gun stores out of the city, which it obviously did.
“It is important to remember that the city would never have released this data if it hadn’t been for our lawsuit in 2016 that forced Seattle to come clean and turn over the revenue figures,” he observed. “Otherwise, we believe the city would have continued to conceal this information because it is embarrassingly short of their prediction.”
“This was, and remains, a First Amendment issue,” said TheGunMag.com Senior Editor Dave Workman. “The public, and especially Seattle taxpayers, have a right to this information.”
“The city probably spent more on legal bills to keep the information confidential, and on manpower to comply with the Public Records Act and last year’s court order than it has so far collected,” Gottlieb estimated. “But this is a pretty good example of what gun control is all about. It always begins with grandiose promises, it invariably hurts the wrong people, it doesn’t stop criminals, and in the end those responsible stubbornly refuse to admit their real goal was to further erode gun rights. And the public winds up essentially worse off than they were before.”
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
Has anyone seen any data on Kommieforniastans ammo tax?
Um………”Lochner vs, New York ” had nothing to do with this issue.
What is it costing the state to continue this tax?? Deduct that amount from the revenue collected and I bet the taxpayer is again getting screwed!!
This is a law pushed on the Feel good side of city by the very disgusting disgraced mayor .His name if I remember correctly was Dick Manlove.He should be serving time now.
And the abysmal revenues realised from this scam is only one part of the egg all over their socialist mugs. In Wasngton, a portion lf ALL sales tax is allotted to the city wherein they are collected. Seattle has set their city tax rates above every other city in the state. They USED to get that portion on all firearms and ammunitionsales, just as they do on cameras, fast food, hammers, etc. Now all the firearms sales on which they USED to collect that tax have been moved out of the city, so they not only DON”T get the gun… Read more »
If “this was really a thinly disguised gun control scheme”, then it fails the substantive due process test. This is well settled law. Has no one read Lockner v. New York?
Visited family in Seattle many times, tax the idiots and the air heads they would make millions.
Seattle is 10 gallons of stupid in a 5 gallon bucket. Wait, that also describes Olympia.
They can just subsidize it with the soda tax revenue! Oh wait that was a massive failure too
As long as the left has a full ration of stupid about guns people will simply drive out of town to buy a firearm.