(DCNF)—Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut introduced an amendment to an appropriations bill Monday seeking to impose a massive tax increase on suppressors and certain firearms.
The reconciliation bill signed into law by President Donald Trump in July contained provisions that reduced the taxes on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and guns described as “any other weapon” to $0 after the Senate Parliamentarian struck language that removed those items from any coverage of the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA). Murphy’s amendment, known as SA 4159, would restore the taxes and increase them to $4,709 per item.
“This is actually not the first time that Sen. Chris Murphy has proposed this tyrannical tax hike,” Gun Owners of America Federal Director Aidan Johnston told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “His goal with this amendment is to price Americans out of their ability to exercise their Second Amendment rights.”
Johnston noted that when enacted in 1934, the $200 tax imposed by the NFA was intended as a prohibitive financial barrier to owning a machine gun, adding that the figure Murphy selected adjusts the tax for inflation. Other pro-Second Amendment organizations also condemned the amendment Murphy offered.
“While this amendment is unlikely to advance in the current Congress, it makes one thing clear: Democrats see the NFA as an attractive target. This is exactly what we’ve warned about: they’ll never stop at banning guns outright; they’ll just try to tax them out of reach,’ the National Association for Gun Rights told the DCNF. “As long as the NFA’s registration framework exists, we’re going to keep fighting this same battle. The GOP should recognize this threat and end it at the source by dismantling the NFA entirely.”
“I can only hope that someday Senator Murphy has as much disdain in his heart for criminals as he holds for law-abiding gun owners who exercise their Constitutional rights and the firearm industry that serves them,” Mark Oliva of the National Shooting Sports Foundation said. “Congress just acted on this issue to reduce the NFA tax to zero, and this isn’t the first time Senator Murphy has pursued this punitive and abhorrent tax, including firearm suppressors, which are essentially safety devices. Senator Murphy constantly calls for ‘commonsense’ gun control. This proposed tax proves what we really need in America are commonsense senators.”
The National Rifle Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
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