Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle submitted a proposed budget on Thursday that would impose a tax of a nickel for each bullet and $25 for each firearm sold in the nation's second-largest county, which encompasses Chicago.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/1 ... 78916.html

Personal mixed feelings about this one. Since most of my shooting is done for fun, a tax to compensate for crime expenses is not necessarily bad.

(Run and duck)

Wonder if Cook Cnty board members have stakes in Dupage/Lake county located gun shops?

Five bucks says the elected official in question doesn't know the difference between a bullet and a cartridge.

Fukshot wrote:Five bucks says the elected official in question doesn't know the difference between a bullet and a cartridge.

Yeah, Inquisitor needs to visit his County Officials at some point here. Educator, this is definitely a teachable moment.

It would get thrown out by the courts. The situation would be similar if, while saying you have a right to free speech on the internet but were taxed $.01 per character you post. This comes up every so often because it sounds good to the urban base. They also know it would go nowhere but because it sounds good it's pulled out at times like this for GOTV drives in the cities.

Law of Unintended Consiquences:
1) shooting will be only for the rich
2) Ammo dealers just across county line will do great business, while those within perish
3) Now a large portion of ammo purchases in the county just went underground, with no way to track
4) I would expect those within the county to go into double hoarding mode, which should worry this guy
5) if someone intends to unload a .44 mag into someone, do you think the 30 cents tax is going stop them?

Eyewash. Nothing but political eyewash.

Great, now a run on reloading equipment.... LOL

Senorgrand, I think 1 and 3 is the intended consequence.

This kind of shit gets floated every so often. It is Cook County but most of the board swing Republican to keep chicago in check.

It'll be called the Chris Rock tax...

CDFingers

Fukshot wrote:Five bucks says the elected official in question doesn't know the difference between a bullet and a cartridge.

Or a magazine and a clip.

Taxing ammunition to stop gun crime is not going to be effective. If the intention is to raise the price of the type of ammo used in violent crime then this needs to be better thought out. $.05 per bullet on a 50 box of 9mm is only going to be a price increase of $2.50. Not a big deterrent. $.05 on a 500 count box of .22 is $25! More then doubling the price of a box of ammo primarily used by recreational and target shooters. Not to mention criminals aren't going to be obtaining ammo legally anyway.

A tax where the money goes to rooting out the actual problems that lead to gun violence such as poverty or that promotes education and firearms safety might get more legs. I'm not opposed to some sort of tax that actually targets the real problems but this bullet tax is not well thought out.

JoeW1911 wrote:...is not well thought out.

You, Sir, have just hit the head of the issue. Critical thinking skills is not a requirement for the County Board and can actually cost someone their election if they show they have it.