“Newspaper reporter” seems mean the same thing as “liberal activist” in some states.
Certainly, that would seem to be a logical conclusion to reach for reporters in California, whose government hasn’t seen a program that they haven’t wanted to tax people to death to implement (and, then, proceed to screw up).
Because they’re often liberal activists, it’s easy to read what they write and just assume that it’s all going to be tripe and nonsense. After all, that’s often the case, but, occasionally, they surprise you as happened to me when reading over a piece by Hannah Wiley writing for The Sacramento Bee (hat tip to here for the lead). Wiley writes,
A California Democrat isn’t giving up on a proposal to tax guns and ammunition that appeared to die in the Legislature last week.
Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, said he’ll revive the effort on Thursday, a week after it failed to gain enough Democratic votes to clear the Assembly. He said he’s hoping a logistical change to Assembly Bill 1223 will buy him time to lobby for it.
The bill required a two-thirds majority vote in the 80-member Assembly because it would establish new excise taxes — 10% on handguns and 11% tax on long guns, rifles, precursor parts and ammunition. Money raised from the fines would help fund gun violence education and prevention programs.
Re-read that last sentence again. “Money raised from the fines.” Wait, I thought that it was a tax, not a fine.
Freudian slip? Yeah, I think that’s exactly what that was. I think that Wiley, like leftists, in general, see taxes on guns and ammunition as fines for “making American more dangerous” (even though legal gun ownership makes Americans safer).
While it’s refreshing to see some candor about how leftists view gun taxes and gun control, it’s infuriating that people still believe that claptrap. It looks like we have more work to do on educating people.