Following two devastating mass shootings last month in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, lawmakers have placed an emphasis on making a change to gun laws in the United States, including the idea of raising the age to legally purchase an assault rifle from 18 to 21.
While the Senate is waiting to vote on the Protecting Our Kids Act after it was passed in the House last week, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) introduced the Assault Weapons Excise Act on Tuesday, which would impose a 1,000% tax on assault weapons, according to The Washington Post.
"My bill would impose a 1000% excise tax on the manufacturer, importer, or producer of assault weapons and high capacity magazines," Beyer said in a tweet. "It's designed to bypass the filibuster and win Senate passage with 50 votes."
To bypass the Senate filibuster, Beyer would need at least 10 Republicans to support it. Business Insider first reported about Beyer's bill on June 5.
"Congress must take action to stem the flood of weapons of war into American communities, which have taken a terrible toll in Uvalde, Buffalo, Tulsa, and too many other places," Beyer said in a statement.
"Again and again assault weapons designed for use on the battlefield have been used in mass shootings at schools, grocery stores, hospitals, churches, synagogues, malls, theaters, bars, and so on. As the response in Uvalde shows, even law enforcement feel outgunned."
Beyer went on to explain his history of voting for gun laws to be changed and said that the Assault Weapons Excise Act "would give the Senate an option for further action to address the epidemic of gun violence."
"I have voted in the past for commonsense gun safety reforms only to see them run aground on Senate Republicans’ filibuster; my bill presents a pathway to bypass that obstruction and enact lifesaving measures," Beyer said in the statement. "If the Senate is able to agree on the legislative package currently under discussion, which would be a very positive development, my bill would give the Senate an option for further action to address the epidemic of gun violence.
"It is essential that Congress take meaningful action to prevent gun violence, and the bill I am putting forward can cut through the gridlock and get it done."
The bill has 36 Democratic cosponsors, and even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said there's a good chance he would support the bill, according to The Hill. Beyer believes that the 1000% tax on assault weapons would change the way people think about purchasing guns.
"It’s trying to hit the sweet spot, where it’s not an all-out ban, but people’s independent purchasing decisions would be much more ‘no’ than ‘yes,’ ” Beyer said on Tuesday. "You want to shift the demand curve pretty significantly."
Firearms are currently taxed at 10% or 11%, depending on the type of weapon, and ammunition is taxed at 11%. Rosanna Smart, an economist at the Rand Corp., told the Washington Post that Beyer's tax is "much higher" than others that have been proposed, such as raising the firearms tax to 30% and ammunition to 50%.
“While there’s precedent for taxation being a legitimate or acceptable policy lever in the firearms space, I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this,” Smart said.
She added that it's important to consider how the tax will affect consumer demand, as Beyer's bill would make an assault rifle that already costs over a thousand dollars much more expensive.
"We can be pretty sure that a 1,000 percent tax is going to tax some people out of the market," Smart said. "The question is if they’re going to be able to find a substitutable [gun] that gets around that tax rate."
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