Proposed Bill Would Add 1000% Excise Tax On Purchases of Semi Auto Firearms and Magazines

On August 4th, a United States Representative from Verginia, Donald S. Beyer Jr. introduced legislation designed specifically to punish Law Abiding Americans who follow the Constitution. The Representative should be ashamed for proposing such legislation. Instead, his legislation garnered the support of 24 other Congressmen co-sponsors, who have an equally negative view of your individual's right to self-defense.

The bill currently sits in the House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means. That committee—or sub-committee—will vote to bring the proposed legislation to a House-wide vote or not. As of today, 8/8/2023, the Government's official website only published a proposed title, and does not list the text of the bill.

The title of H.R. 5135, proposed by Representative Beyer Jr. is:

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose an additional 1,000 percent excise tax on the sale of large capacity ammunition feeding devices and semiautomatic assault weapons, and for other purposes.

Here is a link to information on the proposed legislation on the Congress.Gov website.

As mentioned, at the time of this post, we don't know the full text of the bill. But I think we can glean a lot from the title. It's yet another attempt to punish, intimidate, and attack law-abiding gun owners. The bill has a long way to go before it could become the law of the land, and even then it would assuredly face legal challenges. That's not the point.

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Outlandish bills like this test the waters and see what kind of support they earn. Now there are 435 representatives in the House, and only 24 jumped on to be co-sponsors. That may not seem like a lot of support, but just because a representative doesn't co-sponsor a bill, doesn't mean they won't vote in favor of passing it.

The 24 co-sponsors are all Democrats. As we saw with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), Republicans have no problem selling out the gun rights of Americans. I'm not telling anyone who they should or should not vote for. What I would say is that whomever you vote for, make sure you do some homework and don't just vote for the person because they have a D or an R next to their name. Here are the names of the 24 co-sponsors of H.R. 5135:

• Rep. Velazquez, Nydia M. [D-NY-7]
• Rep. Barragan, Nanette Diaz [D-CA-44]
• Rep. Schakowsky, Janice D. [D-IL-9]
• Rep. Evans, Dwight [D-PA-3]
• Rep. Casten, Sean [D-IL-6]
• Rep. Mfume, Kweisi [D-MD-7]
• Rep. Raskin, Jamie [D-MD-8]
• Del. Norton, Eleanor Holmes [D-DC-At Large]
• Rep. Carson, Andre [D-IN-7]
• Rep. Lynch, Stephen F. [D-MA-8]
• Rep. Porter, Katie [D-CA-47]
• ep. Johnson, Henry C. “Hank,” Jr. [D-GA-4]
• Rep. Blumenauer, Earl [D-OR-3]
• Rep. Connolly, Gerald E. [D-VA-11]
• Rep. Cohen, Steve [D-TN-9]
• Rep. Grijalva, Raúl M. [D-AZ-7]
• Rep. Meng, Grace [D-NY-6]
• Rep. McCollum, Betty [D-MN-4]
• Rep. Trahan, Lori [D-MA-3]
• Rep. Tlaib, Rashida [D-MI-12]
• Rep. Ruppersberger, C. A. Dutch [D-MD-2]
• Rep. Watson Coleman, Bonnie [D-NJ-12]
• Rep. Lieu, Ted [D-CA-36]
• Rep. Lee, Barbara [D-CA-12]