By Eileen McCarron, Colorado Ceasefire
This November’s Colorado ballot will be a long one—faced with 14 issues up for consideration, voters could be forgiven for giving up and skipping them all. Please don’t. Way down at Proposition KK, you’ll find a small but powerful measure that will support veterans, give vital mental health services to Coloradans in crisis, and offer life-saving help to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
Prop KK, approved by the Colorado Legislature last session, would enact a 6.5 percent excise tax on the sale of firearms, firearm components and ammunition. Gun and ammunition sellers with less than $20,000 in annual sales are exempt, as are private sales and sales to law enforcement and active military.
Revenues from the tax will fund a slate of victim services decimated by recent cuts in federal funding; the amount given to Colorado has been cut in half since 2018. In coming years, it is expected to decrease an additional 40-50 percent. Other states have made up for these cuts from within their own budgets–but TABOR restrictions mean Colorado cannot do likewise.
The impacted services include crime victim support, veterans’ mental health, youth behavioral health, and school safety. One critical provision of Prop KK is closely aligned to Colorado Ceasefire’s mission of gun violence prevention: help for victims of domestic violence.
Domestic violence is far too prevalent. In 2022, 94 Coloradans were killed in domestic violence incidents—86 percent with firearms. Legislation such as Colorado’s Extreme Risk Protection Orders law has helped authorities get these weapons out of the hands of abusers. It’s a great first step, but victims need both immediate safety and longer-term support.
Imagine a woman (and it usually is a woman: according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 71 percent of domestic violence victims are women, and a third of women will experience partner violence in their lifetimes) fleeing her home at 1 a.m., perhaps with children. She needs a place to go, right now—but she may also need a lot more. Did she have time to grab clothes, diapers, even a toothbrush? And what about the next day? Safe houses and providers of ongoing support for these women and children count on government funding to help them start over.
So why a tax on the makers and sellers of firearms and ammunition?
There is a strong connection between firearms and many of the societal ills Prop KK seeks to address: 71 percent of 2023 Colorado homicides were committed with a firearm. Fifty-six percent of 2023 Colorado suicides were accomplished with a firearm. Tragically, Colorado has a long, sad history of firearm violence committed by people with untreated mental issues.
How about supporting our veterans? The veteran suicide rate is 1.5 times that of civilians. In 2021, 72 percent of veteran suicides involved firearms. With an average of 18 veterans dying by suicide in the U.S. each day, 13 of them by firearm, addressing veteran suicide means talking about guns.
Domestic violence? A victim whose abuser has access to a firearm is five to eight times more likely to die than a victim whose abuser doesn’t. More than half of female homicide victims are killed by a current or former male partner, and 96 percent of murder-suicide victims are female. Shockingly, homicide is the leading cause of death during pregnancy and postpartum. Intimate partner violence also involves threats and psychological abuse—those lucky enough to survive it in the first place need ongoing counseling and support, which Prop KK provides for.
The gun lobby will insist that taxing law-abiding businesses to address the bad actions of criminals is unfair. We argue that those profiting from the provision of dangerous products bear an outsize responsibility for the misuse of their wares—look no further than the excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol. In addition, businesses whose products and services incur high costs on governments and infrastructure—think excise taxes on diesel fuel and tires for trucking—also rightly pay more. Every year, gun violence costs U.S. taxpayers $12.6 billion—that’s $274,000 per firearm death, and $25,000 per firearm injury.
We hope you’ll consider ALL the measures on this year’s ballot, and especially Proposition KK. It is the one measure on your ballot that can directly save lives.
Eileen McCarron is the president of Colorado Ceasefire Legislative Action. A slightly edited version of this editorial appeared in the Sept. 27 edition of The Denver Post.
