SEC. 2.
The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the following:(a) Gun violence is a public health and safety crisis nationwide. Firearms are now the leading cause of death for American children. California’s gun death rates are substantially lower than the national average, yet firearms remain a leading cause of death, injury, and trauma for young people and especially young people of color in this state.
(b) Gun violence also contributes to significant racial and socioeconomic inequality in safety. The most recent available data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) indicates that in 2021, nationwide, the parents of a Black son 13 to 19 years of age were more likely to lose their child to gun homicide than every other cause of death combined.
(c) A majority of gun assault victims survive the shooting but are often left to grapple with severe physical and mental injuries and long-term expenses, impairments, and pain. People who have been direct victims of violence are at substantially higher risk of being violently reattacked or killed, in part because a large majority of nonfatal shootings do not lead to arrest. Strained by the overwhelming number of shootings and related challenges, law enforcement agencies across the United States cleared less than one-third of aggravated assaults with firearms in 2019. Victims who have been shot, shot at, or chronically exposed to threats of
gun violence and associated traumas may seek safety by affiliating with armed groups or engaging in retaliatory violence themselves.
(d) Gun violence imposes enormous harms on those who are not direct victims as well. The Director of the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention presented research to Congress demonstrating that “youth living in inner cities show a higher prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder than soldiers” in the nation’s wartime military. Many studies have documented how witnessing a shooting or being chronically exposed to gun violence is correlated with increased risk of negative health outcomes, criminal system involvement, reduced educational engagement and achievement, and longer term negative impacts on workforce potential and earnings.
(e) The CDC notes that “Community violence can cause significant physical injuries and mental health conditions such as
depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Living in a community experiencing violence is also associated with increased risk of developing chronic diseases. Concerns about violence may prevent some people from engaging in healthy behaviors, such as walking, bicycling, using parks and recreational spaces, and accessing healthy food outlets. Violence scares people out of participating in neighborhood activities, limits business growth and prosperity, strains education, justice, and medical systems, and slows community progress.”
(f) In addition to its enormous human toll, gun violence also causes economic harm in impacted communities and imposes enormous fiscal burdens on state and local governments and taxpayers. A report from the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform in 2020 determined that each
firearm homicide in Stockton, California cost taxpayers at least $2,500,000 in direct government costs such as medical, law enforcement, court expenses, and lost tax revenue; nonfatal shootings with a single suspect were also estimated to cost taxpayers nearly $1,000,000 on average. A 2021 report by Everytown for Gun Safety found that gun deaths and injuries cost California $22.6 billion annually, of which $1.2 billion is paid by taxpayers every year. Gun violence also imposes broader indirect costs in the form of reduced home values and reduced profitability for local businesses. A report by the Urban Institute found that each additional homicide in a census tract in Oakland, California was “significantly associated with five fewer job opportunities among contracting businesses (businesses losing employees) the next year.”
(g) Even the
most responsible members of the firearm and ammunition industry profit from commerce in uniquely lethal products that are commonly used to cause death and injury in this state, while enjoying unique exemptions and immunities under federal law from many forms of civil liability, accountability, and product safety regulation that might otherwise incentivize safer business conduct and mitigation efforts.
(h) The firearm industry has also enjoyed windfall profits on top of sustained long-term growth at a time of record nationwide spikes in shootings and gun homicides. A 2020 Economic Impact Report by the firearm industry trade association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), noted that “the economic growth that America’s firearm and ammunition industry has experienced in recent years has been nothing short of remarkable.” A
2022 NSSF Economic Impact Report said the same thing, and documented a 269-percent increase in the firearm and ammunition industry’s estimated economic impact from 2008 to 2021 and an 11-percent increase from 2020 to 2021 alone. Federal Bureau of Investigation National Instant Criminal Background Check System (FBI NICS) background check data indicates that as of January 31, 2023, 7 out of the top 10 days with the highest volume of firearm background checks on record occurred in 2021 or 2022. In California, gun sales increased 56 percent from 2019 to 2020. The number of people with at least one firearm acquisition recorded in California Department of Justice records increased by over 20 percent between January 1, 2020, and January 1, 2022.
(i) This surge in firearm and ammunition sales and profits has occurred alongside an unprecedented spike
in shootings and gun homicides across the United States and California. As the firearm industry has gained record profits, California and local taxpayers have faced increased costs and economic harms as a consequence, while more families and communities have suffered the brutal loss or victimization of a loved one.
(j) Firearms and ammunition sold by licensed manufacturers,
dealers, and vendors of these products contribute to gun violence and broader harms. Gun dealers, for example, are the leading source of firearms trafficked to illegal markets, often through straw purchases, as well as negligent losses.
(k) The excise tax on firearm and ammunition retailers proposed in this act is analogous to longstanding federal law, which has, since 1919, placed a 10-percent to 11-percent excise tax on the sale of firearms and ammunition by manufacturers, producers, and importers. Revenues from this excise tax have been used, since passage of the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act in 1937, to fund wildlife conservation efforts that remediate the effects that firearms and ammunition have on wildlife populations through game hunting, particularly through grants to state wildlife agencies,
and for conservation-related research, technical assistance, hunter safety, and “hunter development.”
(l) This act will similarly place a reasonable surtax on firearm and ammunition industry members profiting from the sale of firearms and ammunition in order to generate sustained revenue for programs that are designed to remediate the devastating effects these products cause families and communities across this state.
(m) The National Rifle Association has referred to the Pittman-Robertson federal Firearms and Ammunition Excise tax as a “legislative model” and “friend of the hunter,” and NSSF has repeatedly emphasized the importance of this federal firearm industry excise tax as well. A 2019 statement by an NSSF director published on NSSF’s internet website emphasized that “an often overlooked,
and certainly under-communicated benefit, is the impact that excise taxes on firearms and ammunition have on conservation and wildlife populations,” and a similar 2018 statement from NSSF praised Key Pittman and Willis Robertson, the legislators who sponsored the Pittman-Robertson excise tax, as “heroes of the most successful conservation model in the world.”
(n) This act would similarly provide dedicated revenue to sustain and expand effective gun violence prevention, healing, and recovery programs for families and communities across California, particularly in communities most disproportionately impacted by gun violence.
(o) This act is consistent with our nation’s longstanding historical tradition of regulating commercial firearm and ammunition manufacturers and sellers,
including through federal, state, and local taxes on this commercial activity. An 1883 California statute, for instance, directed local governments to provide for payment of all revenue assessed as a tax, or received for licenses, on the storage, manufacture, and sale of gunpowder and related products in order to fund a “Fireman’s Charitable Fund” to support professionals tasked with remediating the collateral impacts of firearm-related commercial activity on public safety through fire risk.
(p) The tax specified in this act is a modest and reasonable tax on a profitable industry whose lawful and legitimate business activity imposes substantial harmful externalities on California’s families, communities, and taxpayers. The modest tax proposed in this measure mirrors the Pittman-Robertson federal excise tax on firearm and ammunition
industry participants, is similarly dedicated to funding programs to remediate the harmful externalities of firearm industry commerce, and is similarly unlikely to discourage lawful sales and commerce in firearms or ammunition. A gun policy research review by the Rand Corporation noted that the available “research suggests that moderate tax increases on guns or ammunition would do little to disrupt hunting or recreational gun use.”
(q) The revenue from this act would provide sustained, dedicated investments in programs that are effective at addressing and remediating harms caused by firearm and ammunition industry products, including investments in: (1) community gun violence intervention and prevention initiatives that help address risk factors for violent behavior, protect and heal victims, interrupt cycles of shootings, trauma, and
retaliation among those at highest risk, and address racial inequality in access to safety for communities of color; (2) gun violence research that helps stakeholders identify leading causes and evidence-based responses to gun violence; (3) initiatives that train health care providers about effective clinical tools for preventing firearm suicide and injury; (4) crime victim services, including mental health services, for victims of mass shootings and other gun homicides, and individuals chronically exposed to gun violence in their community, including students in school districts disproportionately impacted by gun violence in the school or broader community; (5) coordinated efforts to ensure firearm and ammunition purchasers are adequately informed about how to comply with California’s gun safety laws and responsibilities associated with safe use and possession of firearms, including child access
prevention, and to promote effective and equitable implementation of California’s gun safety laws and programs; (6) programs that promote victims’ and public safety by ensuring the prompt, safe, and consistent removal of firearms and ammunition from people who become prohibited from possessing them, such as after a gun violence or domestic violence restraining order; and (7) evidence-based activities to effectively and equitably support gun homicide and shooting investigations in order to deliver justice for victims of gun violence in communities bearing the brunt of these tragedies.