For Dems, ‘Affordability’ Takes a Back Seat to Gun Control

Democrats across the country are going to be running on “affordability” this election cycle, but there’s one big exception to their push to reduce the cost of living: guns, ammunition, and other items protected by the Second Amendment. 

I’ve previously written about the bills in Virginia to impose a $500 tax on the sale of all suppressors and the legislation creating a separate 11% tax on the sale of firearms and ammunition. My colleague Tom Knighton has covered Chris Murphy’s bill in Congress that would jack up NFA taxes from their current zero dollars (for most NFA items, anyway) to $4,709 per item; a figure derived from adjusting the $200 tax imposed by the NFA in 1934 to today’s dollar, accounting for inflation.

Now Maryland Democrats are following their counterparts in Virginia (as well as states like California and Colorado that have already imposed excise taxes on firearms and ammunition). 

Under the proposal, the tax would not take effect immediately should the bill pass. Large retailers, defined as stores with at least 20,000 square feet of retail space, would begin collecting the tax July 1, 2027. Smaller dealers would follow a year later, starting July 1, 2028.

Taxes collected under SB 118 would be specifically allocated to a range of public safety and health programs.

After administrative costs are covered, the bill directs the revenue to be split among several funds, including:

-Violence intervention and prevention programs

-Community-based support and education initiatives

-Grants for families of homicide victims

-Trauma physician services

-Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center

Democrats want to make is unaffordable as possible to exercise a fundamental civil right. They want to price people out of purchasing a suppressor, despite their proven success at reducing hearing loss and intriguing findings that they greatly diminish the concussive effects of gunfire at indoor ranges. Just from a health perspective we should be promoting the use of suppressors as broadly as possible, but imposing a needless bit of gun control is exponentially more important to most Democrats than protecting gun owners’ hearing and cognitive abilities. 

The excise taxes, meanwhile are another attempt to pin the blame for the actions of violent criminals on lawful gun owners, and to make them and bear the burden of paying for their crimes. The left regularly talks about the “root causes” of crime, like poverty and its associated ills, but those are utterly ignored with these excise taxes… which means they’re being used as a cudgel to attack our Second Amendment rights rather than to truly further the government’s interest in public safety.  

What’s worse is that I’m afraid they’re likely to get away with it, thanks in part to a law that’s nearly 90 years old has the endorsement of the majority of the firearms industry, hunting, and outdoor groups, and one with an unarguable record of success. 

The federal government collects an 11% excise tax on the sale of firearms, ammunition, and a few other sporting-related products, with that revenue providing grants for a variety of wildlife conservation and restoration programs, as well as hunter education and some gun safety programs. The Pittman-Robertson Act has been in place since 1937, but it’s only been in recent years that politicians like California Gov. Gavin Newsom decided to emulate the law for their own anti-gun ends. 

Supporters of these excise taxes argue that if gun owners don’t object to the Pittman-Robertson Act, then there’s no reason to object to an additional 11% increase in the cost of their guns and ammo. After all, the money’s going to a good cause, just like with Pittman-Robertson, right? 

Shortly after California’s excise tax went into effect, a coalition of Second Amendment groups filed suit. The case, known as Jaymes v. Maduros, voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiffs last year because of a “procedural snafu,” according to attorney Kostas Moros, who said the plaintiffs have to first file (and lose) an administrative appeal in order to exhaust the administrative remedies and have standing to litigate. 

In their initial complaint, though, the plaintiffs never mentioned or tried to rationalize how Pittman-Robertson might be okay while California’s excise tax is not. They simply argued that there is no historical analogue for an excise tax of this size on arms and ammunition, and that the state’s 11% excise tax “infringe Plantiffs’ rights under the Second Amendment.” 

The NRA, FPC, and SAF teamed up again in March 2025 to challenge Colorado’s 6.5% excise tax on “any firearm, firearm precursor part, or ammunition”, this time joined by the Colorado State Shooting Association, a gun range, and an individual gun owner. Once again, nary a word in the initial complaint about the federal excise tax that’s almost twice as high, and why that would be permissible while Colorado’s tax is not. 

Now, the plaintiffs don’t have to try to foreclose the defendants’ arguments in their initial complaint, but it’s hardly unheard of to do so. And honestly, the simplest argument is that Pittman-Robertson was enacted long after either the Second Amendment or Fourteenth Amendment were ratified, and therefore bears no significance to the legality of the state-imposed tax. 

The only problem with that argument is that, if these state-level excise taxes are unconstitutional then the federal excise tax likely is as well… and that puts 2A groups at odds with a program that has been very successful at increasing wildlife habitat and opportunities for hunters since its inception. 

What about arguing that Pittman-Robertson would be okay so long as the excise tax didn’t solely apply to constitutionally protected items like arms and ammunition. Could Congress modify Pittman-Robertson and apply the excise tax to to things like binoculars, camping equipments, and other things that animal lovers might use to get close to nature? Theoretically, yes, but in doing so that could also jeopardize funding for public target ranges or shooter recruitment and outreach programs, as well as broader hunter education and safety efforts. As the Congressional Research Service laid out in a 2022 explainer on Pittman-Robertson:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), within the Department of the Interior (DOI), administers Pittman-Robertson. FWS apportions funds to states and territories through three formula-based programs: the Wildlife Restoration Program (Section 4(b)), Basic Hunter Education and Safety Program (Sections 4(c) and 8(b)), and Enhanced Hunter Education and Safety Program (Section 10). FWS also allocates funding for a Multistate Conservation Grant Program (Section 11) and for general program administration (Section 4(a)). To be eligible for Pittman-Robertson funding, the law requires states to have enacted laws ensuring all hunting license fees collected by a state are directed solely toward the administration of the state wildlife agency (16 U.S.C. §669).

The Wildlife Restoration Program provides funds to state fish and wildlife agencies to restore, conserve, manage, and enhance wild birds and mammals and their habitats. States must submit to FWS proposed wildlife-restoration projects or comprehensive fish and wildlife resource management plans to receive funds under this program. Among other purposes, the funds may be used to provide public access to wildlife resources; to acquire, restore, and manage wildlife areas; to conduct research on managing wildlife and its habitat; to facilitate public access for hunting or other wildlife-oriented recreation; and to maintain completed wildlife-restoration projects. Federal funds may be used for up to 75% of costs of implementing projects.

The Basic Hunter Education and Safety Program funds may be used for teaching responsible hunting skills; acquiring property for public firearm and archery ranges; constructing, operating, or maintaining such ranges for public use; and recruiting hunters and recreational shooters. The Enhanced Hunter Education and Safety Program grants may be used to enhance hunter education, development, and safety activities and to construct or maintain public target ranges. The federal cost share for both programs is generally 75%, though the federal cost share for public target range projects may be up to 90%.

It’s hard enough getting state legislatures to allocate funds for public ranges. Telling them that federal grants would only cover 40% or 50% of the cost instead of 75% to 90% would make it even more difficult. 

But would that really need to be the case? If you added to the products that carry the 11% excise tax, you’d also be increasing the revenue raised by the tax. Yes, the law might have to start covering non-hunting opportunities to get close to nature as well, but that doesn’t mean it has to be at the expense of existing programs. 

It would, however, allow anti-hunting (and anti-gun) groups a bigger voice in lobbying where Pittman-Robertson funds are directed, which very well could result in a loss of funding for range and recruitment-related grants going forward. 

If there’s a winning argument that can keep Pittman-Robertson in place as is while proving these state-level excise taxes unconstitutional, I don’t know what it would be. I’m very curious to see what 2A attorneys come up with, because sooner or later they’re going to have to confront the issue and answer the question: if a federal 11% excise tax on guns and ammo is just fine, why isn’t it okay for states to do the same? 

And if the answer is “it’s not just fine,” then we better get ready for an anti-hunting gun owner to sue the feds over the constitutionality of Pittman-Robertson using the exact same arguments raised in the California and Colorado cases. I’m kind of surprised that hasn’t happened already, but if any state-level excise taxes are struck down on Second Amendment grounds, I don’t think it will be long before the anti-hunters come for Pittman-Robertson… and either way, expect more blue states to impose excise taxes of their own going forward. 

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights, even as they start to see that maybe we had a point.

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