By Annabel Gregg
I was born in a town obsessed with guns. Washington County, where I grew up, is a small, sparsely populated, rural area in upstate New York. Like many places in the United States, gun ownership is ingrained in the culture, as much a part of our identity as four-wheeling and fishing.
In April, guns put Washington County in the national spotlight. 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was shot and killed when she and her friends pulled into the wrong driveway by accident. Gillis never even got out of the car, and she lost her life. Gun violence can punch at the heart of a community.
Washington County is hardly unique. At the time of publication, it is the 225rd day of 2023, and the country has already endured 437 mass shootings this year. In 2022, more than 20,000 people in the U.S. died from gun violence.
My rural town has seen the other drawbacks that can come with a pro-gun culture. A Black Lives Matter protest I attended in 2020 was nearly canceled after rumors of a gun violence threat were made against our group of demonstrators. Guns can create a sense of fear and insecurity, and their presence can infringe upon freedom of expression.
Something must be done to curtail this violence. Though 72 percent of Americans say gun violence is a “big problem,” reforms have been difficult to enact, thanks to broad resistance from Republican legislators.
How can we prevent senseless gun violence and mass shootings? More specifically, how can we achieve this while avoiding the heightened political partisanship often associated with the matter?
On Monday, August 14, California’s state Senate will hold a committee hearing on a promising gun reform idea: increased taxes on guns. Last week, federal Democrats in the House of Representatives proposed a huge excise tax on assault weapons. Both California and Congress should turn these ideas into law. These tax-based gun reforms could be effective in limiting the sale and purchase of guns, and importantly, unlike some more aggressive gun control measures, they stand a chance at passing in a hyper-partisan political environment.
The federal government currently levies an excise tax of 10 to 11 percent on the manufacture and sale of guns, and has not updated that tax rate since its creation in 1919. California’s proposed bill, Assembly Bill 28, would add up to an 11 percent state tax on top of the federal tax, and the proceeds would support gun violence prevention. Last year, a similar proposal received 50 of the 54 votes required to pass the state Assembly. At the federal level, House Resolution 5135, proposed by Democratic Representative Don Beyer of Virgina, would place a 1,000% excise tax on semiautomatic assault rifles and large capacity ammunition feeding devices such as magazines or belt strips.
The theoretical case for higher gun taxes is strong. To use the economics phrasing, guns have negative externalities: When someone uses a gun, it can harm others who have no say in it and do not benefit from it. When an individual decides to use a gun to commit a crime, it can harm innocent people in the vicinity. When a state decides to enact lax gun laws, it can create a negative externality for neighboring states, or the country as a whole, by making it easier for guns to flow across state lines. Our government levies excise taxes on people who use alcohol, gasoline, and cigarettes to account for the harms those products can cause other people, and guns should get the same treatment.
A recent empirical study from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows the effects that such a policy could have. Analyzing how gun owners make purchasing decisions, researchers concluded that a higher gun tax could be particularly effective in dissuading first-time buyers from purchasing a gun.
These proposals combine a privilege that Republicans hold on to for dear life—gun ownership—with something Republicans hate more than death—heightened taxes. Especially at the federal level, where Republicans control the House, it is reasonable to be skeptical of these reforms’ viability. But even though a similar bill died in committee last session, a proposal like Beyer’s has more life than you might expect: as a revenue measure, bills that impose taxes go through the reconciliation process and only require approval from half of the Senate, as opposed to the usual 60 votes needed to get over the filibuster hump. In the House, Democrats would only need to enlist six of their conservative colleagues to support such a bill—a potentially reachable consensus considering five sitting Republicans voted to pass federal gun safety legislation last year. The extreme Shall Not Be Infringed Act from last year, which proposed to eliminate all gun control measures enacted between 2021 and 2022, died in committee even with the Republican majority. Not all Republicans want gun ownership above all else, and measures to combat tragic mass shootings will at least be considered by some.
There is no time to waste. Every day, guns take more American lives. By imposing additional hefty taxes on the sale of certain firearms, governments can raise revenue to help offset the societal costs of gun violence and discourage people from purchasing dangerous weapons. They say nothing in this world is certain except death and taxes, but maybe we can stop one with the other.
Annabel Gregg is a native of Upstate New York. She’s pursuing her MPA-PNP with a specialization in Public Policy Analysis.
