Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
BALTIMORE — A mayoral candidate’s plan to reduce violence in Baltimore includes a “bullet tax” that he said will increase the cost of committing a crime.
Otis Rolley said he would, if elected, propose a $1 per bullet tax on all bullet purchases in the city.
The stupid…it burns!
This isnt the first time some brainless politician (but I repeat myself) has come up with such an amazingly stupid idea. Pat Moynihan, I believe, wanted to tax the crap outta .22, .25 and .32 pistol ammo back in the 90’s since they were what were used in many crime guns of the time.
On a national level, as you may know, theres already an excise tax on guns and ammo. In addition, if you want fun guns like SBR’s, full autos, sawed-off shotguns, etc, theres a further tax penalty.
For me, reloading my own ammo, in addition to saving money, gives me a bit of a headstart on avoiding these sorts of issues. The bottleneck, of course, is primers…I can make my own bullets, and in a pinch I might be able to even make my own black powder, but making my own primers just is not in the cards (although it can be done with more than a small amount of difficulty and a large helping of unreliability.) I suppose some pipe-bomb-on-a-stick muzzleloading flintlock would put you completely off the radar in terms of self-sufficiency…cast your own balls, make your own powder, make your own flints…, and while a rocklock beats an empty hand, I think I’d rather just stock up on primers and smokeless powder.
Anyway, its an interesting avenue to take since making something prohibitively expensive can work just as effectively as a total ban. And , yes, the proposed legislation mentioned in the article is local to that city, and it is likely that the ammo is acquired the same way the guns are – illegally – and thus the only ones inconvenienced will be legitimate shooters and retailers.
