Not sure whose bright idea it was to bring back the Lincoln Gun Control Act of 2018, but that bill was the equivalent of a poll tax.
I would hope most of y'all here have the common sense to realize why that's unconstitutional.
Well, many aims that we were trying to get with the fixed version of this bill were actually better handled by the Lincoln Gun Control Act of 2018 and in a more elegant way, so best to bring that bill back.
Why was it unconstitutional though? To my knowledge there has never been a court case on it right?
Poll taxes were used to disenfranchise blacks and poor whites because payment was considered a prerequisite for voting.
The licensing outlined in the Lincoln Gun Control Act works the exact same way, except applied to gun rights (which is a constitutional right in case some of you forgot), rather than voting rights. It's a very clear example of infringement.
Eh, I'd disagree with that assessment. Buying a gun will be several times more expensive than any licensing the government could reasonably impose.
And worst case scenario, the bill could just be amended so that said licenses are free (so you can get a license for free and poor people can have a gun license too I guess, even if they can't buy a gun)
The licenses aren't just for purchase, it's for carrying a firearm as well. So people who already own a gun are affected. It's also not just licenses that are the problem. This also required people to participate in training classes as a government approved facility. So this also harms people who do not have transportation to these facilities, people who live too far away from the nearest facility, or people who cannot afford the classes.
Sure, you can attempt to at least make the licensing portion free to your citizens, but the GM department already did an analysis on how much that would cost at the time that bill was debated. Are you really sure you want to destroy the regions budget just so the region can participate in constitutional overreach?
In fact, Ninja even agreed at the time that the cost estimate given at the time was too much:
I'm just wondering if this was going to be addressed at any point:
So this programme will cost around $8.188 billion. Taking into account factors like non compliance, the license fee would need to be at-least $243.39 on average per gun to break even.
Regressive poor tax to exercise a right.
