SEATTLE, Wash. — Seattle City Council unanimously approved 'Gun Violence Tax' that charges $25 for every firearm legally sold in Seattle on Monday.
Quick Facts:
- Seattle City Council will vote on Monday
- Sellers would be taxed $25 for every gun sold plus 2 or 5 cent taxes on each bullet
- Tax estimated to generate $300,000 a year for gun violence prevention
- Gun store owner says shop owners and customers will leave Seattle
The council adopted the tax on an 8-0 vote Monday, along with a companion measure to require mandatory reporting of lost or stolen firearms.
Opponents say it won't stop criminals, but instead hurt legitimate businesses.
Some gun sellers said that instead of passing the added cost onto their customers, they would just move their stores out of Seattle.
The ordinance will tack on a new $25 tax on sellers for every gun sold, plus a new 2-cent tax on every .22 caliber bullet and 5 cents each for all other bullets.
The tax is estimated to generate about $300,000 a year to fund gun violence prevention.
"By providing for gun violence research with a tax on the sale of guns and bullets, and requiring gun owners to report lost or stolen firearms, Seattle is actively responding to the gun violence that is devastating our society," Washington Center for Gun Responsibility Executive Director Renee Hopkins said. "The human cost of gun violence has been especially clear in recent weeks, as shootings have claimed the lives of our young people and of community leaders like Donnie Chin."
Between 2006 and 2010, there were on average 131 firearms deaths a year in King County, according to Public Health-Seattle and King County. An additional 536 people required hospitalization for shooting injuries during that time.
According to Burgess, the direct medical costs of treating 253 gunshot victims at Harborview Medical Center in 2014 totaled more than $17 million. Taxpayers paid more than $12 million of that. City officials estimate that the new tax would bring in $300,000 to $500,000 a year, but gun shop owners told council members those numbers are inflated and that the law would cost them customers and sales.
Sergey Solyanik, owner of a Seattle gun shop called Precise Shooter, told the council the tax would simply prompt customers to travel to nearby cities to buy guns.
"The only real purpose of this legislation is to run gun stores out of Seattle," he said.
But gun-rights activists promised to sue on the grounds that the city doesn't have the authority to impose the measures. The Seattle tax is patterned after a similar measure in Cook County, Illinois.
Washington state prohibits local governments from adopting laws related to firearms unless those local ordinances are specifically authorized by state law. City Attorney Pete Holmes said Monday that the tax measure is allowed by the city's taxing authority — a proposition disputed by Alan Gottlieb, co-founder of the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation. He noted that in 2010, Seattle dropped a rule banning guns in parks after opponents sued on the grounds that the local measure was pre-empted by state law.
"The courts aren't going to buy it," he said. "This is not authorized by state law, and therefore it's not going to hold up."