House Democrats have proposed new legislation that would impose a 1,000% excise tax on “assault weapons” and “high-capacity” magazines. The legislation comes as Democrat lawmakers try to limit gun access to American citizens.
According to Fox News, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and 24 other House Democrats officially introduced the legislation last Friday, marking the second time Democrats have attempted to propose the idea of a 1,000% excise tax on certain guns.
Last year, Beyer and 37 Democrat lawmakers proposed the excise tax when Democrats still had a majority in the House of Representatives. However, the legislation was not acted upon. Beyer’s proposal last year would have imposed the excise tax on any magazine that could hold over 10 rounds.
Beyer’s previous proposal also would impose the 1,000% excise tax on any “semiautomatic assault weapon,” which he defined as a semiautomatic rifle or a pistol with a magazine containing 10 or more rounds of ammunition.
Fox News reported that the exact details of Beyer’s new bill proposal were not yet available. However, if the bill is similar to Beyer’s previous proposal, a $1,000 weapon would cost American consumers over $10,000 to purchase.
Beyer has claimed that the excise tax bill would “curb the epidemic of gun violence.”
“Congress must take action to stem the flood of weapons of war into American communities, which have taken a terrible toll in Uvalde, Buffalo, Tulsa and too many other places,” Beyer said when he first proposed the legislation last year. “Again and again assault weapons designed for use on the battlefield have been used in mass shootings at schools, grocery stores, hospitals, churches, synagogues, malls, theaters, bars and so on.”
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Beyer’s new proposal comes after 100 Democrats wrote a public letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), claiming they were “disappointed” that the Republican leaders in the House had not voted on legislation to limit gun ownership in the United States.
“As Members of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, we call on you to schedule votes on gun violence prevention legislation as soon as possible this year,” the letter stated.
The National Rifle Association claims that proponents of gun control use the term “assault weapon” as a means to “deliberately confuse the public and advance the political cause of gun control.”
According to the NRA, “assault rifles” only describe automatic weapons, but advocates of gun control use the term for semi-automatic weapons, as well.
