Comedian Chris Rock has said that we don’t need to regulate guns, what we need to do is regulate bullets. NPR had a story yesterday (7/8/19) concerning Virginia’s efforts to restrict guns at government public meetings and on government property in response to the Virginia Beach mass killings. That being the case, if the Virginia government can’t restrict people from having guns on public property, can they at least prevent people from having live ammo there? Does requiring gun-toting 2nd Amendment types to check their bullets at the door violate the 2nd Amendment? What do you smart people say?
I think that if passed it would be quickly overturned as a de facto ban on arms, ammunition being a necessary component of their operation.
Certain things are coextensive rights with the 2nd amendment. The right to purchase, practice, train, etc. See Ezell v. Chicago:
Ammunition is a necessary component to exercise the fundamental right of self defense with arms.
From a practical matter, I’m sure an enterprising municipality could pass a law effecting such a ban. If this were to happen, it would be litigated and then it’s up to the folks in black robes to decide. I would expect them to strike down ammunition ban type laws.
The legal principle is “penumbras and emanations” - the idea is that a right that is explicitly written in the text also covers a number of related implied rights that support it. So an explicit right to keep and bear arms also implies a right to purchase arms, a right to keep a gun in operable condition, a right to own ammunition, a right to load a gun, and the right to shoot the gun in some circumstances because without these related implied rights the explicit right would be meaningless.
So it’s pretty well established that buying/owning ammunition couldn’t be prohibited outright, or probably even much legally restricted.
But could it be taxed along the lines of cigarettes/alcohol? Like say… a 30% sales tax?
I was thinking ammunition tax, but a lot higher than 30%. Plus an equally high tax on gunpowder so that making your own bullets would also be expensive. I suspect that mass shootings would become, if not less common, then perhaps less deadly. The Las Vegas shooter is estimated to have fired 1100 rounds. I f each bullet cost him $5, how many rounds would he have shot?
Let’s face it, “the government” can ban anything it wants and if the courts don’t accept or won’t Hear your arguments wtf are you going to do about it?
For decades the government proclaimed, in writing, that a simple plastic stock was perfectly legally to produce, own, and use. Then, just on the whim of the President, with no vote by Congress, such pieces of plastic were declared illegal and it’s possession a serious federal felony. No congressional vote, no due process, no reimbursement for seized private property.
The important thing here is that the courts rejected or refused to hear any arguments regarding the legality of how such a ban was implemented. Even though those arguments were very sound and based in Constitutional law.
If the government can do that for pieces of plastic it certainly could get away with doing it with ammunition, specific kinds of firearms, or widgets for that matter.
The trick would be to make it onerous, but not necessarily a stealth ban. Set the taxes too high, and you run afoul of two ideas- namely that this is a right, not a privilege, and second, people are going to claim that taxing it too high is restricting the right to the rich.
The idea would be to make ammunition something you’d have to think about buying as much or more as the gun itself. To that end, I also think that there isn’t any reason NOT to enforce the same background checks on ammunition as on guns. And prohibit the purchase of guns and ammo on the same day.
This way, the serious recreational shooters wouldn’t be put out too much- they’d presumably pass all the background checks, and their hobby would just go up in price. Similarly, home defense/militia types would just have to spend more and/or accumulate their ammo stockpile over longer time.
But your garden-variety loon might not be able to go buy ammo easily due to background check OR lack of cash in the pocket. I mean, these guys shooting 500-1000 rounds in their sprees would have to have say… 1000-2000 dollars to spend on ammo, and have to premeditate it a lot more- if nothing else, they’d have to sit tight for an extra day before they could go get the ammo.
A court would need to make a determination on how much any restriction impacted the right, and how closely the restriction was to a valid purpose. Any restriction would need to satisfy intermediate scrutiny at a minimum.
When faced with a $1000 excise tax on handguns, a federal court ruled in MURPHY v. GUERRERO:
What these things should tell us is to always be suspicious of any restriction on arms as the rational for such are often simple pretense to implement further restrictions or bans.
IANASCJ but, in my opinion, no. I think it’s acceptable to place the same sales tax on firearms and ammunition that you place on general goods. But I feel that any tax you place on them above the general rate would be a violation on the Second Amendment.
I would make the same argument against any special tax on printed material based on the First Amendment.
Cigarettes and alcohol? Tax away; they have no constitutional protection.
California recently passed a law not banning ammo but putting in place the process and infrastructure to do background checks on ammo purchases.
*California has some of the most stringent gun laws in the country. Now, a far-reaching new initiative to curb violence will require background checks for every ammunition purchase.
The law goes into effect Monday. [July 1, 2019]
California’s requirement follows similar laws in Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Gun violence declined in those states after they required licenses to buy ammunition, though they also tightened other gun laws,…*
He had a large collection of firearms, many thousands of dollars worth, so spending $5500 on ammunition would not have been a great burden. And it’s extremely rare for a shooting to involve that much ammo.
Restricting ammunition quantities is completely backwards. Recreational shooters use large quantities of ammo, thousands to tens of thousands of rounds a year.* Murderers use anywhere from one round, to a magazine full, or possibly a few hundred rounds in the rare case of a mass shooting. Restricting ammo purchases or taxing them would burden recreational shooters the most while not significantly burdening gun murderers. That is, unless you restrict ammo quantity to zero, in which case you may as well ban guns altogether.
(News reporters and non-shooters often sensationalize ammunition quantities of criminal suspects and others. “The suspect was caught with thousands of rounds of ammo in his home!” There are reasons people keep large amounts of ammo. Regular shooters shoot thousands of rounds a year at the range. Ammo, like most things, is often cheaper in bulk. And it lasts for many years if it’s stored properly. I’ve personally shot WWII-era pistol ammo in the 90’s and it worked perfectly. So it’s natural for regular shooters to have a lot of ammo. Plus there’s the additional factor of people stockpiling it in case it gets banned in the future.)
There is already an 11% excise tax on ammunition plus whatever sales tax. That sales tax compounds the excise tax.
The Las Vegas guy was a millionaire, and likely didn’t expect to need money where ever he is going. I don’t understand making training, a fundamental component of safety and accident prevention, difficult.
Alcohol taxes are based on the volume sold, and sometimes the percentage. Not the dollar value of the alcohol. Same with cigarettes I think, a flat amount per pack.
The NPR story I referred to talked about public officials such as city council members wanting to ban gun-wielding citizens from bringing their AK-47s to city council meetings as a show of force to attempt to intimidate people. In that situation, I think banning ammo, and having people have to unload their weapons at the door, get a receipt for their ammo, and pick them up after the meeting would be entirely appropriate. Needing their weapons for self protection would be superfluous as their safety would be in the hands of policemen and guards at the meeting place. I think such a restriction would be entirely reasonable, not burdensome or costly, and would withstand judicial scrutiny. IMHO YMMV,
That’s an odd path to take. A city could easily restrict weapon possession in government buildings. This is done in court houses across the nation - no need for the obvious pretense. There may be other nuances depending on the location.
This is the sort of idea that probably doesn’t seem obviously bad to many non-gun-folks, but trust me, it’s not a great idea to have a bunch of gun owners unloading their guns in the lobby of City Hall before the city council meeting (and reloading them afterwards). Not to mention that I can’t imagine any city risk assessment personnel would be too keen on all the liability they’d be piling up in this situation.
What law is this?
OK Then have all weapons confiscated at the door, so the gun-toters will get the message to leave them at home or in their cars.
I’m curious what locality you are talking about. Likely this is already the case. Perhaps you have a misunderstanding of existing law?