California’s Bullet Tax Challenged: Legal Battle Erupts Over Firearm Levy
DEBARYLIFE –
The newly imposed 11% tax on guns, gun parts, and ammunition in California is being challenged in a lawsuit filed in San Diego County Superior Court by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), some other gun rights organizations, and individual plaintiffs.
The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration’s director, Nicolas Maduros, is the object of the James v. Maduros case.
The National Rifle Association, the Firearms Policy Coalition, the California Rifle & Pistol Association, and two private individuals, Joshua Gerken and Danielle Jaymes, have joined SAF in this legal battle.
Michel & Associates in Los Angeles and Cooper & Kirk in Washington, D.C. are working together to represent the plaintiffs. Lawyers Chuck Michel, Tiffany Cheuvront, Laura Palmerin, and Joseph Dale from Michel & Associates, as well as David H. Thompson and Peter A. Patterson from Cooper & Kirk, make up the legal team.
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SAF founder and executive vice president Alan M. Gottlieb stated, “We are contesting the constitutionality of the tax, as enacted by Assembly Bill 28.” The lawsuit argues that the 11 percent tax is unlawful due to its taxing of conduct that is protected by the Second Amendment. As mandated by the 2022 Supreme Court Bruen verdict, there is no comparable proof that a levy of this kind was ever imposed during the time of the Founding.
According to SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut, “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” “The State of California may outlaw the practice of a constitutionally protected right by designating it for special taxation, according to Assembly Bill 28.
Should this tax be upheld, it may be increased in the future, and California may eventually apply similar excise charges to other fundamental rights that it finds objectionable. Taxing the right to keep and bear arms won’t make this stop.
The action seeks the court to permanently prevent the state from executing the terms of AB 28, including the collection of the excise tax, and to declare that the excise tax on firearms and ammunition violates the Second Amendment. It also aims to recoup expenditures, such as legal fees.