BURBANK, Calif. — The end of June saw a rush of business at Guns Direct in Burbank.
Customers like John, who chose not to use his last name, made it a point to stop by before July 1.
“I’m stocking up on ammunition because there's a tax coming up,” he said.
He’s referring to California’s new 11% excise tax on firearms and ammunition that went into effect at the start of July. That tax — on top of Burbank’s 10.25% sales tax means a total of 21.25% added to the receipt.
Guns Direct owner James Janya said that essentially doubles what consumers had been taxed previously, and it really adds up.
“Say a $1,000 gun. You're over $200,” he explained, “and you still have to pay the state fee, the background check. So at the end of the day, the state's making a lot of money. A lot.”
An estimated $160 million, according to Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, author of the Gun Violence Prevention and School Safety Act. A father of three, he said the bill was designed to protect students and Californians in general from gun violence and mass shootings.
“It was just so, eye opening to me and shocking and horrifying when my oldest was in kindergarten and he came home and we realized that he had done an active shooter drill in school.”
Signed by the governor last September, California now is the first state in the nation to enact such a tax. The money raised is earmarked to pay for things like the violence intervention programs, firearm relinquishment, gun safety education and school-based mental health and behavioral services.
One thing that Gabriel, a Democrat from Encino, stressed is that this bill was not meant to target consumers.
“This is designed very intentionally to be a tax on the industry,” he explained, much like the federal excise tax that’s been in place for over 100 years.
But many dealers are, in fact, passing it on directly to their customers, and there’s no reason why they can’t. Every gun store Spectrum News contacted in Burbank is now automatically taxing customers at 21.25%.
Janya has owned the store since 2010 and expects there may be a dip in sales initially, but said often these government actions spur more business.
“People are scared that they're going to lose their rights to buy ammunition, buy guns,” he said. “Nobody wants to pay more taxes. I think everybody can agree on that one, that more taxes are never good.”
He does hope the money goes to school safety as the bill stipulates and so does John, who purchased $2,000 worth of ammunition before the tax kicked in.
“I do think that gun safety should absolutely be a thing,” he said, “but I also think that at the end of the day making it more expensive to purchase firearms and weapons is just making it harder for lower-income people.”
The law went into effect on July 1, but its future could be uncertain. The NRA, the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition and California Rifle & Pistol Association have since filed a lawsuit aiming to block the new tax, claiming it violates the Second Amendment.