2
Ammunition Prices Effective by Government Intuition
Over the years the government has not made many polices regarding taxation on ammunition in
the United States. The government has only imposed policy on the formal side of purchasing
ammunition which means that a person is buying from either a federal licensed dealer or straight
from the manufacturer. While the informal side remains uninterrupted by the government which
includes person to person sales or the black-market sales. In 1919 the federal government impose
and eleven percent sales tax on ammunition. While this is the only federal tax over ammunition
most states have gone beyond this for example, Pennsylvania adds a $3 surcharge on firearms
subject to the sales tax, and revenues are deposited into the state background check system (R.
Smart,2021). The main reason there is not a tax on the informal side of buying ammunition is the
government felt that by taxing the formal side would influence the informal side usually in the
form of rising the prices.
Today people are looking for ways to and calling on the government to impose more polices and
taxation on ammunition. The reason this is more of an issue today than it has been in the past, is
that over the past few years there has been a rise in mass shooting throughout the country. There
are several reasons the government has had trouble finding ways to effectively create polices and
taxation for ammunition one of them is the lack of data due to the government’s actions of not
imposing really any changes to their polices throughout the years, this does not allow
researchers' the information needed to see what could or has changed prices. To go along with
this, there is also not enough data to allow researchers to view ammunition sales over really
stretch of time. Also, the other factor is there is little evidence to help show how external factors
affect the prices of ammunition. These challenges that the federal government has faced has not
3
stopped local and state levels of trying to impose taxation to raise the price of ammunition. Cook
County, Illinois, which passed a $25 tax on firearms in 2013, implemented a similar tax increase
on ammunition of $0.01 to $0.05 per cartridge in June 2016 (R. Smart,2021). By the local and
state levels imposing more taxation helps give researchers more data needed to conduct proper
studies. In the light of the increase in mass shooting across the country administration has
working with the legislation has attempted to raise the federal taxes on ammunition to try raise
prices and keep people from buying large amount or bulk buy ammunition with the bill HR 5717
Gun Violence Prevention and Community Safety Act of 2020. This bill looked to raise the tax of
ammunition by up to fifty percent and the reason it was such a huge jump from what the current
tax on ammunition is part of the money that was taxed was supposed to be the funding for
research to help reduce the amount of gun violence in the country (Congress, 2020). Due to the
government trying to impose more restriction in this bill as well as the taxation it did not get any
votes. If the government would have just tried to raise the taxes on ammunition and not force all
the restrictions with it, they would have had been able to better chance of controlling the price of
ammunition. As this way of taxation through policy has worked for the government for other
areas where the goods are potentional dangerous. Given that taxation has been a standard policy
lever for other potentially harmful goods (e.g., cigarettes, alcohol, and soda or sugary
beverages) (R. Smart,2021).
In the recent years the government as used the gobal pandemic due to the Covid-19 virus to gain
some control over prices of everything including ammunition. A big cause of this would be the
supply chain issues that were as a result of the virus the government input some mandates that
caused a big disconnect between supply and demand. Covid 19 causes a lot of the country to start
buying ammunition at record rates and due to the mandates, the supply and import of
4
ammunition coming in was not enough to keep up with the demand. This causes the price of
ammunition to skyrocket quadrupling their pre-pandemic prices for some calibers, while other
calibers experienced still-significant price hikes of 25% (A. Smith, 2021). This also affected the
prices of the raw materials to produce ammunition which was part of the reason for such an
increase in the prices people were seeing in the stores. The inflation of ammunition prices has
not only affected the public but also the police departments had to reduce their use of training
ammunition as the cost and supply issues were even too much for most departments to keep up
with.
Another way that the government can create new policy and add to the control over ammunition
prices is by enacting bans on certain types of ammunition. The current administration has done
this. After Russian invasion of Ukraine part of the sanctions they placed was to reject any
shipment that originated from Russia. By doing this will cause ammunition prices to increase
dramatically as Russia is one of the major imported ammunition to the United States. Without
the import of Russian ammunition to help fill the shelves in the stores will cause more panic as
there is still supply chain issues and the cost of raw materials is still higher from the Covid 19
virus. And as restriction of imported goods are stopped stores are counting on the oversea supply
to fill the shelves. but it could still have an impact on what has been a very volatile market this
year. Multiple brands could soon essentially disappear from store shelves (P. Suciu, 2021). As a
result of this ban will without any doubt effect the supply and demand chain that has yet to be
repaired and prices to get anywhere close to what they were before the virus. The supply of
ammunition for sale to American gun owners is now smaller – but with the same number of
shooters still in need of ammunition — the price of all ammunition will rise (A. Rice, 2022).
5
As the government tries to gain control over the price of ammunition, they will need to achieve
the following to start. The government needs to be able to find evidence and data to see what the
best way would be to create new policy and taxation on ammunition, and management over what
imported ammunition the government allow to enter the country. Once the government has done
those items to gain more control over ammunition prices the next step for the government to
keep or further their control over price of ammunition would be creating new policy with
licensing and fees.
References:
Firearm and Ammunition Taxes
6
https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/firearm-and-ammunition-taxes.html
Soaring Ammunition Prices Prompt Gun Owners To Count Their Bullets
https://www.forbes.com/sites/aaronsmith/2021/08/10/ammunition-inflation-prompts-gun-buyers-
to-count-their-bullets/?sh=7e8b43b77ce3
Why Ammo Prices Could Soon Go Higher Thanks To Joe Biden
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2021/08/why-ammo-prices-could-soon-go-higher-thanks-to-joe-
biden/
H.R.5717 - Gun Violence Prevention and Community Safety Act of 2020
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/5717/text
INSIGHTS INTO RETAIL AMMUNITION PRICES
https://www.gunowners.org/ammunitionprices/
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
