So fucking funny. No one buys ammo in Seattle...from the TWO whole stores there are. Uhhh, were all buying them by the case online, no tax, free shipping dumbfucks.

@1: it's establishing a precedent that could be applied at the state or federal level, braniac. hopefully it will be applied to online sales to Seattle addresses, as well.

but for now, someone is buying the guns and ammo sold at Big 5, no? it's not just Butch's and Discount Guns that sell firearms and ammo.

I would have set the tax much higher. weed is sin-taxed at >30%.

Poor Tim, he has no real chance of campaigning on real issues since losing the plot on supporting bertha, and gay marriage is decided, so lets pick a wedge issue to throw out and get sued over!

Its gonna work, you're totally going to get re-elected for this.

This shows how little the council thinks it can accomplish on density, police reform or any local issues, that we are taking a ride on this.

Sigh.

Anti-gun politicians love feel-good bullshit laws that will have no effect on gun crime.

@1 if the law is easily circumventable and @4 it will have no effect on gun crime, then there really isn't any consequence from having it be established law, except to recoup a portion of tax payer money lost to gun violence. Sounds downright practical.

How in the fuck is Harborview basically claiming $68k per gun shot victim? Those numbers do not even begin to add up, regardless of how ridiculously expensive healthcare is in this country.

Adding an expense to guns/ammo is not even remotely close to addressing the root cause of gun violence. Feel good policy/politically convenient? Yes. Effectively? No. The vast majority of cases are not gun nuts accidentally shooting themselves (or others). Address the circumstances that foster gun violence in the first place and make some real change.

Coming up: Burgess will take up a position against Cancer. You don't like Cancer either? Then re-elect Tim, because he also doesn't like Cancer. He is also against killing kittens. Criticize Tim? You are in favor of Cancer and killing kittens. If you don't like killing kittens, vote for Tim.

@6: yes, address the root causes first! just like we changed the factors that make people want to smoke a cigarette before we made cigarettes sales taxes pay for the public health costs cigarettes cause?

Sounds fair to me

Several things are mis-stated in this article. Frist, all violent crime is down by 50% since the 90's. Most think this reduction is mainly due to more "good guys" being armed and preventing violent crime. Millions (2-11) violent crimes are prevented by armed citizens every single year. So, if you make it harder for the good guys to be armed, you will see a corresponding in increase in violent crime. Take Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit and DC as examples of places where violent crime is high and gun control is overly extreme.
If you want to reduce cost to the public, you need to reduce violent crime by enforcing laws against actions like murder, assault, rape and robbery. Not make up new laws to entrap and discourage good people from being responsible. The cost of a murder by a hammer is just as expensive as the cost from a rifle. And, in fact the FBI reports that more people are killed with a club than with rifles.
If you are interested in preserving life and health of innocents, you need to remove the "No Gun Zones" and provide high quality gun training at low prices. We need more trained and armed good guys!

Require insurance and a license on all guns, as we do for cars. Like car insurance, do bad things or drive a dangerous car you pay more. Beat your wife, own a bushmaster..... No insurance, lose your license, lose your gun. Marketplace will set the price based on the associated morbidity and mortality rates.The ammosexuals with guns can chose to keep the number and type of guns, as they do for their cars. We worship the capitalistic marketplace, put it to use on this health epidemic.