Washington state lawmakers are pushing yet another measure intended to restrict our Second Amendment rights under the guise of trying to fix a serious societal issue. In this case, they introduced a measure that would place an extra tax on ammo, then use the revenue to prevent suicides and domestic violence.

KTTH radio political commentator Jason Rantz noted:

State Representatives My-Linh Thai and Liz Berry, both Democrats, introduced House Bill 2238. Under the auspices of public safety, claiming access to ammunition is the cause of violence and not their soft-on-crime policies that go easy on criminals (including those who use guns in their crimes), the bill imposes an 11% sales and use tax on ammunition statewide.

The text of the bill notes that gun crime “remains a persistent health and safety threat for people across our state,” and that “in Washington, a person is killed by a firearm every 14 hours and nearly half of all suicide are from firearms.”

The authors of the bill also point out that “69 percent of all firearm-related deaths were suicides,” and that gun violence “is the leading cause in Washington for teens between 15 and 19.”

It continued by stating that "[d]ata from the Washington office of firearm safety and violence prevention show that, in 2021, 69 percent of all firearm-related deaths were suicides."

This is quite a clever tactic on the part of Washington’s anti-gunner lawmakers. After all, nobody wants to see more people committing suicide or becoming victims of domestic violence, right?

But, as with most anti-gun laws, this proposal has several issues.

For starters, the law would place a substantial financial burden on responsible gun owners. Ammo is already expensive enough. Slapping on an additional tax will only make it harder for people to afford ammo. This will impact low-income individuals who need firearms to protect themselves. As much as the “woke” left claims to care about racial minorities, it is interesting they are once again pushing a law that would disproportionately make black and brown residents more vulnerable to violent criminals.

Secondly, this law will do nothing to curb gun violence or other types of crime. As usual, criminals do not obey the law because they are criminals. Applying another tax on ammo is not going to stop the bad guys from victimizing civilians. To put it simply, nobody will be safer because of this law.

Then, of course, there is the obvious infringement on the right to keep and bear arms. As stated previously, this is just another subtle form of gun control. It is intended to make it harder for people to exercise their Second Amendment rights by imposing a law that will make ammo more cost prohibitive.

Moreover, the notion that using the extra cash from the tax to fight suicide and domestic violence is laughable considering the government’s track record in that regard. This is not about keeping people safe but about making them more vulnerable.

It is also worth noting that if Washington’s anti-gunner lobby successfully passes this measure, they will not stop there. This bill is a stepping stone to more onerous gun restrictions, which is why it is important that Washingtonians who value gun rights work hard to stop this measure from passing.