Today’s Agenda

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, proposes quadrupling the federal tax on most handgun ammunition to help pay for health-care reform and stem the national tide of violence. Moynhihan’s proposal is a controversial one, judging by our Platform responses.

But some law-enforcement officials as well as some physicians support the plan.

Glen Levant, former assistant chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, likes the idea: “I would support completely the tax on the military type of ammunition for civilian use. Some of the sporting use ammunition, the legitimate stuff that’s used for hunting weapons, I’m not sure that the (proposed) law applies to those, would probably be counterproductive. If the tax were to be imposed it should be levied on the types of ammunition that are used to kill innocent people.

“The reason I welcome federal action on this is that regardless of the best intentions of a city or a state, only a national prohibition has the potential for success, because there are no boundaries to the traffic in weapons.”

Levant also says the proposed law may not go far enough. He suggests that people be required to obtain a triplicate prescription from a government agency (as doctors do with dangerous drugs) on certain bullets, rather than just pay a tax “because dope dealers, for example, would have no trouble paying 10,000% to get whatever they wanted.”

Levant says a specific identification with a triplicate prescription would alert the appropriate federal agency if someone was stockpiling an inordinate number of certain bullets or some gun stores or ammo stores were dealing with huge quantities of lethal ammunition.

“Will it stop violence? No. Will it help? Yes,” Levant says.

“There’s no simplistic solution to violence,” he says. “Much like our goals in the DARE program, you’ve got to start with the young generation and teach them that violence is something to be avoided and how to cope with anger.”

But Levant doesn’t believe Moynihan’s proposal would provide any money for health-care reform.

“I’ve yet to see a federal bureaucracy that made a profit. And I’ve got no expectations that even a 10,000% tax will make a meaningful profit,” Levant says.

Dr. Patricia Salber, of Physicians for a Violence Free Society, based in San Francisco, is more optimistic. She not only believes that there would be funds for health care but also that some of the funds would be available for programs aimed at reducing violence.

“There’s a number of ways you could cut up the money that comes in, some of which certainly should go toward emergency-department care and trauma care and intensive-unit care but another part of it could go toward education, just as they’ve done with the tobacco tax here in California. “I believe that alcohol, tobacco and ammunition taxes all have one thing in common and that is they will tax the disproportionate user to help pay for some of the negative health effects of their use.”