Colorado is facing a lawsuit over a new excise tax on guns and ammunition opponents claim is an unconstitutional “sin tax” aimed at curbing America’s Second Amendment rights. A 6.5 percent excise tax went into effect on April 1 after voters approved a ballot proposition in November to authorize the tax increase.

The levy is expected to cost taxpayers up to $39 million a year, with most of the proceeds going to grants to pay for crime victims services by nonprofits and government agencies.

The excise tax is on top of state and local sales taxes, as well as 10 percent federal excise taxes on handguns and 11 percent federal taxes on ammunition and all other firearms charged to the gun manufacturers.

“There is a growing effort among states to levy excise taxes to discourage firearm ownership,” the Executive Director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, John Commerford, says.

The NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation are suing the state, calling the tax unconstitutional. The suit claims the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the exercise of a constitutional right cannot be singled out for special taxation.

The case, filed in Denver County District Court, warns that if the tax is allowed to stand there is nothing to stop Colorado and other states from imposing huge taxes on any constitutional rights — whether it is the right to free exercise of religion, the right to free speech, or any other protected individual right.

The Second Amendment Foundation’s director of legal operations, Bill Sack, tells The New York Sun the tax “is a transparent attempt to use the government’s monopoly on taxation to put people’s rights financially out of reach and disproportionately targeting the poorest law-abiding citizens.”

The executive director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law, Andrew Willinger, says courts will have to rule on whether the tax is lawfully not impacting Second Amendment rights. “That likely turns on the amount of the tax and its burden on gun purchasers,” Mr. Willinger tells the Sun.

California became the first state to enact an excise tax on guns, adding an 11 percent excise tax to the price of gun purchases in 2023. It faces a similar suit over the constitutionality of the law. Several other states, including New York, are considering their own excise taxes.

Congress is currently considering a measure to ban state-level weapons-related excise taxes. Congressman Darrell Issa, Congressman Richard Hudson, and Senator Risch, introduced the Freedom from Unfair Gun Taxes Act in both chambers last week.

It would prohibit states from implementing excise taxes on firearms and ammunition to fund gun control programs.

“For too many years, extreme state policies — including from my home state — have targeted our fundamental Second Amendment rights and the American citizens who exercise them,” Mr. Issa said. “The latest attack is California’s imposition of a ‘sin tax’ on firearms and ammunition.”

He says the tax is an “outrageous and unfair burden.”
Rand researchers say there is little empirical evidence indicating weapons taxes reduce violent crime levels.