Black Friday Means Tax Free Guns In South Carolina

For the second year in a row, in what is more a political statement than anything else, gun buyers in South Carolina will pay no sales tax this week-end. The so called “2ND Amendment sales tax holiday” is from Friday until midnight today. There will be no state sales tax on hand guns, rifles and shot guns.

Last year was the first sales tax holiday on guns. State lawmakers wanted it to be permanent, but they included it in another law that was ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court. South Carolina Fair Share says the state needs to get rid of the tax holiday on guns and the August tax holiday on back-to-school items.

“At a time when we are laying off state employees, when it seems like every month the fiscal picture gets worse, having this kind of another drain on the state’s revenues is just irresponsible,” said John Ruoff of South Carolina Fair Share.

Gun store owner, Chuck Scott, said his phone lines have been ringing off the hook. “Last year, guns were selling like gangbusters. I think there was a fear after the election last year, and we have been fighting to keep supply this whole year,” said Chuck Scott.

“It is not to encourage gun sales. It is more a statement of principle. Legislators are trying to make the statement that they support the 2 ND Amendment,” said South Carolina general comptroller Richard Eckstrom.

Despite the statement of Mr. Eckstrom, the tax free week-end is of course enticing people in South Carolina to buy more guns. Americans are stock piling weapons, and it does illustrate that President Obama was right in the controversial statement he made during the 2008 campaign that “bitter small-town Americans are clinging on their guns”. Not only they are clinging on their guns in South Carolina and elsewhere, but they want to get even more guns.

Fire arms sales have surged dramatically in the 12 months since President Obama’s election as millions of Americans have gone on a guns buying spree that has stripped gun shops in some part of the country almost bare of assault weapons and led to a national ammunition shortage. This nationwide gun buying frenzy is pushed by paranoia and fear that the economic crisis will fuel a crime wave.

The National Rifle Association says the surge is driven by worries that President Obama is planning to ban many types of firearms. The NRA has been funding a massive scare campaign to portray President Obama as a gun owner’s worst nightmare, and to argue that tighter restrictions on weapons ownership are a “threat to broader liberties and a step toward tyranny”.