If you are involved in a political issue or even pay attention to one you know that the battle never ends. Take self-defense, for example. Recently the right of self-defense has been making gains in legislatures of the federal and many state governments. But the fight isn’t even close to ending because opponents to self-defense are finding new political tools to make people defenseless. Seattle is looking to restrict the right to self-defense not by passing a prohibition but by creating a new tax:
City Council President Tim Burgess has proposed a tax on every firearm and round of ammo sold in the city, which would be used to fund gun violence prevention programs.
The tax, which would amount to $25 on each modern firearm and 5 cents on each round of ammunition, is expected to skim as much as a $500,000 per year from the wallets of gun owners, the Seattle Times reports. This figure would be in addition to the various state and local retail taxes that approach 9.6 percent in the city already.
If prohibitions aren’t working just raise the costs until they’re prohibitively expensive for all but the wealthiest! Herein lies the issue with political issues of all sorts. No matter what gains are made your opponents will find a new avenue to attack you. Now that legislation isn’t working to the anti-self-defense crowd’s favor they’re looking at adding taxes to ensure poor people are unable to defend themselves. They are also looking at regulations that requires jumping through hoops to discourage people from obtaining a means to defend themselves.
Politics is disgusting business because governments wield monopoly power and can therefore do whatever they want. With that being the case there is an infinite number of ways to use the government to screw people over. If one arm of the government isn’t beating your opponents for you you just need to pay off another arm. That’s why no fight over a political issue will be done until the state has been abolished in its entirety.