Four powerful gun rights organizations joined a pair of California gun owners to file a lawsuit on Wednesday to stop California from imposing an 11% tax on firearm sales to fund gun violence prevention programs. Enacted last year, the law imposes an 11% excise tax on gross receipts from retail sales of all guns, gun parts and ammunition, reports Courthouse News Service. Money from the tax, which went into effect this week, is funneled into a number of different gun violence prevention efforts, including school safety programs, firearm relinquishment grant programs, counseling for victims of mass shootings and grant programs for victims of gun violence.
It supports mental and behavioral health and street outreach and violence intervention programs, along with funding for the University of California, Davis’ California Firearm Violence Research Center, which studies gun related crime, suicides and accidents. In a suit in San Diego Superior Court against Nicolas Maduros, the Director of the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration,Danielle Jaymes, the general manager of Poway Weapons & Gear Range, a gun store and shooting range in San Diego County, and Joshuah Gerken, an Orange County gun owner' say the tax forces them to decrease their purchase of guns and ammunition used for self-defense and training purposes. The tax, they claim, violates their Second Amendment rights, saying, “Here, California effectively seeks the power to destroy the exercise of a constitutional right by singling it out for special taxation. If this tax is permitted, there is nothing stopping California from imposing a 50% or even 100% tax on a constitutional right it disfavors — whether it be the right to keep and bear arms, the right to free exercise of religion or any other right.”