SAN DIEGO (CN) — Four powerful gun rights organizations joined a pair of California gun owners to file a lawsuit on Wednesday to stop California from imposing an 11% tax on firearm sales to fund gun violence prevention programs.
Enacted in 2023, California Assembly Bill 28 imposes an 11% excise tax on gross receipts from all retail sales of all guns, gun parts and ammunition.
Money from the tax, which went into effect on July 1, 2024, is funneled into a number of different gun violence prevention programs, including school safety programs, firearm relinquishment grant programs, counseling for victims of mass shootings and grant programs for victims of gun violence.
It also provides support for mental and behavioral health and street outreach and violence intervention programs, along with funding for the University of California, Davis’ California Firearm Violence Research Center, which studies gun related crime, suicides and accidents.
In their complaint filed in San Diego Superior Court against Nicolas Maduros, the Director of the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, the two named plaintiffs — Danielle Jaymes, the general manager of Poway Weapons & Gear Range, a gun store and shooting range in San Diego County, and Joshuah Gerken, an Orange County gun owner — claim that the tax forces them to defer and decrease their purchase of guns and ammunition used for self-defense and training purposes.
The tax, they claim, violates their Second Amendment rights.
“Here, California effectively seeks the power to destroy the exercise of a constitutional right by singling it out for special taxation. If this tax is permitted, there is nothing stopping California from imposing a 50% or even 100% tax on a constitutional right it disfavors — whether it be the right to keep and bear arms, the right to free exercise of religion or any other right,” the plaintiffs write in their complaint.
Backed by gun rights heavyweights the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, California Rifle & Pistol Association, and the National Rifle Association, the plaintiffs claim that the tax specifically violates their constitutional rights under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
In that decision, which which struck down New York's restrictions on carrying concealed guns, the high court ruled that all new gun regulations have to be justified with evidence that they’re consistent with historical firearm regulations from the 18th and 19th century when the Second Amendment was first enacted.
“California’s unconstitutional and immoral gun tax is a modern Jim Crow law that targets people and rights hated by tyrants like Governor Gavin Newsom,” said Brandon Combs, president of the Firearms Policy Coalition, in a statement. “Thankfully, the Constitution forbids California's political warfare scheme. FPC and our allies are committed to restoring the right to keep and bear arms in California and throughout the United States.”
The plaintiffs are asking the court for declaratory judgment that finds the tax violates the Second Amendment, permanent injunction against enforcement of the tax, costs of the suit, and “other appropriate relief the court deems necessary.”
The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration declined to comment on pending litigation.
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