Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) attorney and Director of Legal Research and Education Konstadinos T. Moros has published his second law review article Thursday, arguing that special taxes targeting common firearms and ammunition violate the Second Amendment.
The 46-page article appears in the University of Wyoming’s College of Law Firearms Research Center.
The paper, Excising the Second Amendment: Why Taxes Targeting Common Firearms Are Unconstitutional, applies the historical test required by New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. It concludes that excise taxes singling out firearms, ammunition and related items – rather than applying generally to all goods – have no well-established analogue in the nation’s tradition of firearm regulation and are therefore unconstitutional.
The article focuses on taxes like California’s 11% “sin tax” on firearms and ammunition, Colorado’s 6.5% tax, the federal Pittman-Robertson federal excise tax and National Firearms Act taxes to the extent they apply to commonly owned arms.
“After joining the SAF team a little over a year ago, Kostas’ impact was felt almost immediately,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “He leads our amicus program and has authored more than 20 briefs since July last year. Having his second law review article published speaks volumes to his commitment to Second Amendment law and provides the legal research courts need. Hostile states are experimenting with new ways to make armed self-defense unaffordable, and his latest article lays out why those taxes fail under the Second Amendment. This research gives litigators and courts a historical roadmap to help fight these unconstitutional taxes in courtrooms across the nation. We’re grateful Kostas is on our team and look forward to his continued research in the space to help further the defense of the Second Amendment.”
The article argues that before 1900 the few American laws that taxed weapons were narrow outliers and typically targeted items many contemporaries treated as outside Second Amendment protection, such as bowie knives and pocket pistols. These laws were also concentrated in
Southern states and often applied only to carry rather than purchase, and almost uniformly left the prevailing combat and self-defense arms of the day untaxed.
“A right that the government can price out of reach is not a right,” Moros said. “Under Bruen, the question is not whether a tax is good policy or whether the burden feels modest to a judge. Rather, the question is whether special taxes on common arms are consistent with our historical tradition. They are not. Legislatures that cannot ban guns outright should not be allowed to accomplish the same result with unconstitutional taxation.”
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