Wikileaks: Hillary Supports 25% Gun Tax

Wikileaks: Hillary Supports 25% Gun Tax

One of the emails contained in the October 7 Wikileaks email release shows Grunwald Communications asking Hillary Clinton’s press secretary about the candidate’s support for “a 25 percent tax on gun sales.”

The email is dated October 4, 2015 and was sent from Mandy Grunwald to Brian Fallon. In it, Grunwald asked about Clinton’s reported vacillation on gun control in the 2008 campaign and also about the tax. She said, “I also saw something about her supporting a 25% tax on gun sales back in 1993.”

ABC News reports that Clinton was “unequivocal” in her support for such a tax during her husband’s presidency. On June 5, 2016, she told George Stephanopoulos her support for the tax was part of the nationalized healthcare push. She said, “What I was saying back then was that we have a lot of public health costs that taxpayers end up paying for through Medicaid, Medicare, through uncompensated care, because that was in the context of the push for health care reform and that we needed some way to try to defray those costs.”

[Editor’s Note:  There has been long-time support by the Clinton’s for a gun tax.  The Clinton administration unilaterally imposed a tax on gun buyers back in 1998.  GOA then helped draft an amendment for Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire to overturn it.  GOA also flooded Capitol Hill with phone calls, faxes and emails right before the vote, and Smith got it overwhelmingly passed in the Senate.  Senator Smith said that, “[GOA’s] leadership was essential in marshaling the grassroots support in favor of this amendment.”

[While some of the amendment was eventually gutted, the core part which cuts funds for enforcing the tax remained — and it still remains to this day (as every funding bill that has been passed by Congress since then contains this prohibition on enforcing a tax on gun purchases).  So what Hillary Clinton is proposing would overturn the hard gains gun owners achieved. GOA reported on this battle in December of 1998: click here to see “Smith Wins Round One for Gun Owners.”]

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