CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2019–2020 REGULAR SESSION

Assembly Bill No. 18

Introduced by Assembly Members Levine, Bonta, and Nazarian
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Bloom, Chiu, Gipson, Limón, McCarty, and Ting)

December 03, 2018

An act relating to gun violence.


LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


AB 18, as introduced, Levine. Firearms: excise tax.
Existing law creates the California Violence Intervention and Prevention Grant Program (CalVIP) within the Board of State and Community Corrections to distribute grants to cities and community-based organizations to fund violence intervention and prevention activities.
The Sales and Use Tax Law imposes a sales and use tax on the gross receipts from the sale in this state of, and the storage, use, or other consumption in this state of, tangible personal property based on a specified percentage of the gross receipts from the sale of, or the sales price of, that property.
This bill would express the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that imposes an excise tax on the sales of handguns and semiautomatic rifles and would require the revenue collected from that tax to be used to fund grants through the CalVIP program.
Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: NO   Local Program: NO  

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:


SECTION 1.

 The Legislature finds and declares the following:
(a) Although California has the toughest gun laws in the nation, more effort is necessary to curtail gun violence. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation found that from 2014 to 2016 gun homicides increased 18 percent. Therefore California needs to bolster violence prevention initiatives so that they are commensurate with the state’s gun laws and the violence prevention programs of other states.
(b) It is the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to impose an excise tax on the sale of handguns and semiautomatic rifles and to require the revenue generated by that tax to be used to fund grants through the California Violence Intervention and Prevention Grant Program (CalVIP) program which support local and community-based violence intervention and prevention efforts.