Democratic Rep. Don Beyer suggests bill adding a 1,000% TAX on AR-15s

Virginia Democrat Rep. Don Beyer eyeing up a bill that would impose up to a 1,000% tax on assault-style weapons as a means of bypassing Republican obstruction to gun control. 

Beyer, a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, told Insider on Sunday: ‘We think that a 1,000% fee on assault weapons is just the kind of restrictive measure that creates enough fiscal impact to qualify for reconciliation.’ 

If Democrats were to pass a bill by reconciliation they would not need to court 10 Republican votes to break a filibuster with 60 votes in the split Senate. Reconciliation can only be used for tax and funding bills. 

Democrats used reconciliation to pass both the American Rescue Plan and the Build Back Better bill in the House.  

They would still need to get key moderate Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on board. Manchin has expressed an openness to banning AR-15-style weapons. ‘I never felt I needed something of that magnitude,’ Manchin, a gun owner himself, told CNN. 

The AR-15 is America’s most popular semi-automatic weapon– they account for one in five guns in the U.S. The weapon typically costs between $700 and $1,200. A 1,000% tax would mean they would cost anywhere from $7,000 to $12,000, putting the weapon out of price range for most people. 

Virginia Democrat Rep. Don Beyer eyeing up a bill that would impose up to a 1,000% tax on assault-style weapons as a means of bypassing Republican obstruction to gun control

The AR-15 is America’s most popular semi-automatic weapon– they account for one in five guns in the U.S.

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The weapon typically costs between $700 and $1,200. A 1,000% tax would mean they would cost anywhere from $7,000 to $12,000, putting the weapon out of price range for most people

Details of the bill aren’t finalized, such as when it would take effect and where revenue raised would go. The legislation would also only apply to future sales and not the some 20 million AR-15s already in circulation. 

Beyer’s definition of ‘assault weapon’ is fashioned after language from a bill that Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., is pushing. It bans weapons with at least one military characteristic like a pistol grip or a forward grip.

The federal government currently imposes a 10% tax on the importation and sale of handguns, according to the Tax Policy Center. Other guns and ammunition are subject to an 11% tax. 

Beyer said the 1,000% tax rate could be changed. 

‘There’s nothing magical about that thousand-percent number,’ he said. ‘It’s severe enough to actually inhibit and restrict sales. But also successful enough that it’s not seen as an absolute ban.’ 

Democrats have tried to tax guns out of existence before with no success. In 2020 Rep. Hank Johnson and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, both Massachusetts Democrats, put forth plans that would have tripled the tax on handguns to 30% and quintupled the tax on shells and cartridges to 50%. Beyer’s plan is likely to face steep hurdles as well. 

Currently the House is set to vote on a series of gun control measures passed out of the Judiciary Committee in a party-line vote. The package includes measures that raise the age for buying semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21, ban high-capacity ammo magazines, prohibit the sales of ‘ghost gun’ kits with no serial numbers and requiring gun owners to safely store their weapons. 

The House will also vote on red flag legislation that would incentivize more states to enact legislation that would allow law enforcement to take away weapons from people who a court has deemed to be a threat to themselves or others. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also promised to bring up a vote on an outright ban of assault weapons, though it’s not clear if she has the votes to get it through. 

All of this legislation is likely to fail in the split Senate, but Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, are drafting a more narrow plan that could include enhanced background checks, red flag laws, and mental health resources. 

Lawmakers have been spurred into action by a recent spate of mass shootings, most notably one at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas that left 19 dead and one at a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store where 10 were killed.