\nThe Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms issued this statement after the announcement that Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle was “compromising” on her violence tax. As it stands now, the tax will only apply to firearm and not to ammunition. I like Alan Gottlieb’s comparison of this tax to the poll tax in the Jim Crow South.<\/p>\n
\nBELLEVUE, WA \u2013 Wednesday\u2019s partial retreat by Cook
\n County, Ill., board President Toni Preckwinkle on her proposed \u201cviolence
\n tax\u201d is a good start, but the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and
\n Bear Arms said the entire idea should be scrapped.<\/p>\nCCRKBA panned
\n the proposal more than a week ago, when Preckwinkle announced she was
\n mulling a 5-cent tax on every cartridge and a $25 tax on firearms to help
\n close a budget gap. Today she backed off on the \u201cbullet tax\u201d but still
\n wants the tax on firearms adopted.<\/p>\nCCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb
\n today was delighted with the partial victory, but said a \u201cfull retreat
\n from this proposed gun ownership penalty is necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cGun owners
\n have won a partial victory,\u201d Gottlieb observed, \u201cbut Preckwinkle is still
\n trying to make them shoulder more than their fair share with this tax
\n proposal. Face it, illegally-armed criminals are not going to pay any tax,
\n so waging class warfare against legal firearms owners is way off target,
\n and we brought attention to it.<\/p>\n\u201cBesides,\u201d he continued, \u201cit\u2019s not
\n gun owners but government that got Cook County into the budget mess. How
\n does a county government come up short by an estimated $3 billion,
\n anyway?<\/p>\n\u201cExperienced shooters and hunters know enough to conserve
\n their ammunition,\u201d Gottlieb said. \u201cPublic officials like Preckwinkle
\n should take a lesson from that when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars.
\n Instead, she wants to just dig deeper in everyone\u2019s pockets, whether they
\n are gun owners, smokers or gamblers.\u201d<\/p>\nNewspaper reports said the
\n county budget could run in the red next year because of the costs of
\n public health clinics, two hospitals and the criminal justice
\n system.<\/p>\n\u201cWhat Preckwinkle wants is to penalize gun owners for
\n exercising a constitutionally-protected civil right,\u201d Gottlieb stated.
\n \u201cThe penalty should be on Preckwinkle and her political allies for
\n spending the county that far into the red.<\/p>\n\u201cThis proposal smacks of
\n the same social bigotry that produced poll taxes on minority voters in the
\n South,\u201d he concluded. \u201cPreckwinkle should know you can\u2019t tax the exercise
\n of a civil right.\u201d<\/i>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n