Alabama Lawmakers Fail to Adopt Tax-Free ‘Holiday’ For Guns and Ammo

This year’s legislative session has drawn to a close in Alabama, and lawmakers left the state capitol without passing a bill that would have established a tax-free “holiday” on the sale of firearms, ammunition, and related accessories. 

As I covered back in February, HB 360 did have its share of opponents, including Democrat Rep. Barbara Drummond, who complained that it was “unfathomable” to her that lawmakers would nix the state’s sales tax on these items, even for a weekend. 

There was also opposition from pro-2A activists, who weren’t happy that the bill only carved out one weekend when firearms, ammunition, and some accessories would be exempt from the state’s sales tax. Bama Carry board member and NAGR Director of Communications Taylor Rhodes complained that the “biggest problem with HB360 is not that it goes too far,” but that it “barely goes anywhere at all.”

This bill is a gimmick, a cover vote, and worst of all, it gives politicians a chance to go home, puff out their chests, and tell gun owners how “pro-gun” they are without doing the one thing that would actually matter on this issue: permanently repealing taxes on constitutionally protected arms, ammunition, and related gear.

If Alabama Republicans want credit for defending the Second Amendment, they need to start acting like a party with a supermajority. They have the votes, they have the power, and they have no excuse for governing like a timid minority scared of their own shadow. Democrats, for all the damage they do, at least understand how to use power when voters hand it to them.

For what it’s worth, I said something similar a few weeks prior to Rhodes’ column. In my first piece on HB 360, I said I wasn’t opposed to the bill, but I’d be far more supportive if the legislation “simply exempted the aforementioned products from the state’s sales tax 365 days a year.” 

I understand that asking politicians to give up revenue is kind of like asking Shannon Watts to give up botox, but it would be a huge signal of support for the right to keep and bear arms. 

There’s also the argument that its unconstitutional to tax the exercise of a constitutionally-protected right, but the Supreme Court’s precedence on that subject has been limited to special taxes that apply only to those items (and the Court has never ruled on the legality of special taxes on Second Amendment-protected items). From my non-lawyerly perspective, my guess is that general sales taxes on guns and ammunition would be upheld by the courts, but still doesn’t prevent legislators from exempting those items if they so choose. 

I stand by what I wrote a few months ago. I don’t think that subjecting firearms and ammunition to a general sales tax is unconstitutional, but that doesn’t mean that lawmakers have to do so. It’s a shame that Alabama’s pro-2A legislators weren’t willing to go along with a year-round exemption or even a three-day “holiday,” but I hope that Bama Carry and other Second Amendment groups in the state will continue to push for that gold standard next session. As Rhodes says, in a state that’s supposedly as 2A-friendly as Alabama, anything less is really an insult. 

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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