The legal challenges continue to mount for San Jose's new law requiring gun owners to purchase insurance for their firearms and now tax groups are taking aim at the measure.
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Once the new law was passed back in January, gun rights advocates shot back with a lawsuit. Now, a number of tax groups are doing the same, their lawsuit focuses on the laws requirements that gun owners must pay an annual fee. That fee will be used to fund suicide prevention programs and firearm safety training.
Tim Bittle is the Director of Legal Affairs for the Howard Jarvis Tax Payers Association, one of the groups behind the lawsuit. He said that to him the fee looks a lot like a tax, a tax he considers to be unconstitutional.
"I mean it goes to the core of our mission, which is tax payers' consent because there was never an election asking San Jose voters permission to levy this tax," Bittle said.
Revenue from the fee will go to fund suicide prevention programs and firearm safety training. Bittle said that collecting money in this way sets a bad precedent.
"It would set a disastrous precedent if government had the power to require its citizens to pay money to a private nonprofit organization that the government chooses," he said.
In response to the lawsuit, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo released a brief statement and said "no good dead goes unlitigated."
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