I like sales tax holidays. Here in Georgia, we have a sales tax holiday for school supplies just before the start of the school year, and the list of “school supplies” includes things like computers, so it’s a good time to upgrade your technology. We’ve also got one for the sale of guns, ammo, and accessories. It’s pretty cool.
Our neighbors in Alabama are considering one, too.
Not everyone is thrilled with it, of course. The usual suspects don’t like it one bit, but the proposal is also being attacked from the gun rights side, and I think there’s a valid argument here.
Catherine Dorrough’s op-ed in the Montgomery Advertiser attacking Alabama’s HB360, the so-called “Second Amendment Sales Tax Holiday,” misses the point entirely. While we both agree this bill is dumb, it’s not for the reasons she says.
She writes as if HB360 is some sweeping pro-gun reform that will unleash chaos in the streets. That is nonsense. This is not a meaningful rollback of anti-gun tax policy. Frankly, it’s barely even a “pro-gun” bill. It is a short, annual sales tax holiday tied to the last weekend of August, and even then, it only exempts the state portion unless local governments decide to participate.
In other words, the “relief” offered here is limited, temporary, and politically convenient.
That is what Dorrough completely misses. The biggest problem with HB360 is not that it goes too far. It barely goes anywhere at all.
This bill is a gimmick, a cover vote, and worst of all, it gives politicians a chance to go home, puff out their chests, and tell gun owners how “pro-gun” they are without doing the one thing that would actually matter on this issue: permanently repealing taxes on constitutionally protected arms, ammunition, and related gear.
If Alabama Republicans want credit for defending the Second Amendment, they need to start acting like a party with a supermajority. They have the votes, they have the power, and they have no excuse for governing like a timid minority scared of their own shadow. Democrats, for all the damage they do, at least understand how to use power when voters hand it to them.
Author Taylor D. Rhodes ain’t wrong here, folks, and neither was Cam when he made the same suggestion last month.
When Georgia passed ours, it was just a few years after passing constitutional carry, and we were pretty happy about most of what had happened. It was just another step that worked out well for us, and it was despite there not being a Republican supermajority. There’s a majority, but not like states like Alabama and Florida.
Passing this is nothing but a chance to look pro-gun without actually being pro-gun.
Georgia’s sales tax holiday is 11 days and exempts qualifying purchases from all sales tax, including local ones. Rhodes brings up Florida’s, which is even longer and also includes local sales tax.
Alabama could easily do this if it wanted to. They could do a whole lot more, too. They haven’t.
In fact, they took a step back last year when they passed a measure creating a state-level prohibition against full-auto switches. Yes, they’re illegal at the federal level, and I understand why they enacted a state law, but it’s still gun control, no matter how you slice it.
This is a nothingburger bill that’s framed as being pro-gun. It’s not anti-gun, but the benefits from this are damn near non-existent. It’s kind of hard to see this as some major win, and these supermajority states really need to step up and start delivering for gun owners if they want us to continue rallying behind them when challenged.
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.
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