PA Bill Number: HB335

Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.

Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...

Last Action: Re-committed to APPROPRIATIONS

Last Action Date: May 6, 2024

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Chicago body count rises despite 2013 'gun tax'; Seattle battle seeks $$ :: 09/06/2015

More than two years after Cook County, Illinois adopted a $25 “gun violence tax” on the sale of firearms, Chicago had its bloodiest day of murder and mayhem in a decade on Wednesday, according to WMAQ News, and yesterday the blood continued to flow with more shootings.

And today, Protect Our Gun Rights/Washington has just issued an urgent funding appeal to keep its part of a lawsuit against a copycat gun tax in Seattle on track, according to spokesman Alan Gottlieb, who also chairs the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. The e-mail appeal follows on the heels of an Aug. 26 e-mail appeal from the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility – the Seattle-based gun prohibition lobbying group – for money from its followers to fight the lawsuit, even though that group is not a defendant.

The Seattle lawsuit was brought by the Second Amendment Foundation, a POGR member, the National Rifle Association and National Shooting Sports Foundation, along with two Seattle retail firearms stores and two private citizens. When these groups look at what has happened in Chicago since the Cook County gun tax took effect April 1, 2013, their collective eyes roll.

On Wednesday, nine people were killed and a dozen wounded, WMAQ and the Chicago Tribune reported. One might look at Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and simply tell her the gun tax doesn’t seem to be having the effect on crime she hoped for. That same message could be sent to Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and Council President Tim Burgess. They’re predicting the Queen City will rake in between $300,000 and $500,000 annually, but critics say that’s pie-in-the-sky optimism.

In its coverage of the Chicago carnage, WMAQ listed the homicide victims. They range in age from age 11 to 32. The youngster appears to have been the victim of a negligent discharge, but others appear to be intentional shootings.

As bodies continue piling up in Chicago, serious questions could easily be raised about the effectiveness of that city’s efforts to make it as difficult as possible for law-abiding citizens to own and carry defensive firearms. In Seattle, the same kinds of questions might be asked, as it appears the uber-liberal administration also wants to discourage gun ownership and perhaps even send firearms dealers packing to new locations outside the city.

Earlier today, this column reported that the state Department of Licensing reported that there are now 497,437 active Washington concealed pistol licenses, up from 496,141 at the end of July, a gain of 1,296 CPLs. As noted, the breakdown includes 92,064 CPLs in King County, of which 18,138 belong to women. Evidently, not everybody in the county is as repulsed by the Second Amendment as apparently are members of the city council.

Since the Cook County gun tax took effect, the number of slayings in the city has crept back upward. It had been declining. While it would be foolish to blame the gun tax for the rising death toll, it would not be unreasonable to say that the tax has not kept it down, which was supposed to be the point of investing in so-called “gun violence prevention” efforts.

While supporters of the Cook County effort may deny it, critics can – with some justification now that 28 months have passed since the tax took effect – chalk it up to another failure of gun control, and another example of false promises from the gun ban crowd.