Prop KK’s Sin Tax on Colorado Guns & Ammo Goes into Effect

April in the US is Tax Month and for Colorado Firearms Owners, It’s a Double Whammy

On top of the existing cost of living crisis and monetary inflation, Colorado firearms owners are bracing themselves. Starting April 1st, the new Proposition KK tax goes into effect. Expect to see either a new line on receipts for firearm, ammunition, and accessory purchases or a direct price increase in the store. Some firearms owners have been stocking up last minute, while others have threatened to take their business to neighboring states.

Critics of Prop KK rightfully see this as yet another tax imposed on them, adding to the dozens of ways the Colorado government nickels and dimes residents, making the state ever more unaffordable for the average resident.

But what is perhaps not known are the origins and effectiveness of such a tax: the idea that firearm ownership is a sin and must be curbed with a sin tax.

The Origin of Sin Taxes and Their Evolution in Puritanical America

Sin taxes, broadly defined as excise taxes levied on goods or activities deemed morally or socially undesirable, have a long history rooted in efforts to regulate undesirable behavior and generate revenue. The concept predates is as old as taxation itself, with early examples appearing in ancient civilizations, such as taxes on alcohol in Mesopotamia or gambling in Rome. However, their formalization in Western society, particularly in the context of Puritanical America, provides a lens through which to understand their origins and purposes and applicability to Proposition KK.

In Puritanical America, which emerged in the 17th century with the settlement of New England by religious dissenters, the moral framework heavily influenced economic and social policies. Driven by a strict Calvinist theology, they sought to create a “city upon a hill”—a society governed by divine law and free from vice. This worldview naturally extended to their approach to taxation and its use to control the populace. Their attitudes toward vice laid the groundwork for later American policies and the legacy carries on today in the form of Progressivism. Activities such as excessive drinking, gambling, and idleness were seen as sinful, threatening both individual salvation and communal purity.

By the late 18th and early 19th centuries in early America, excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco emerged as prominent examples of Puritanical sin taxes. The Whiskey Tax of 1791, enacted under Alexander Hamilton’s fiscal plan, was one of the first federal excise taxes, targeting distilled spirits to fund the national debt. While sold as a revenue measure, it carried moral undertones, as excessive alcohol consumption was widely condemned by religious and civic leaders including the other Founding Fathers, echoing Puritan ideals. The Whiskey Rebellion followed and over time, these taxes became entrenched, with tobacco and gambling joining alcohol as frequent targets by the 19th century, reflecting a continued theme of Puritanical moralism.

In Puritanical America, then, sin taxes evolved from a moral impulse to control vice into a dual-purpose tool: raising funds for the State while ostensibly discouraging behavior deemed harmful to society. This legacy persisted, shaping modern sin taxes on items such as tobacco/nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, sugary drinks (as pushed by Michael Bloomberg), and now even carbon taxes all of which are justified as both public health measures and revenue sources.

Firearms and Ammo Excise Taxes as Sin Taxes: The Case of Colorado’s Proposition KK

Fast forward to the present, and we see a new application of the sin tax model for firearms and ammunition, exemplified by Colorado’s Proposition KK, approved by 54.4% of voters in November 2024 under the promise the monies would fund a new enterprise, the Firearms And Ammunition Excise Tax Cash Fund. Endorsed by the usual gun control groups to curb the so-called epidemic of gun violence, Proposition KK imposes a 6.5% excise tax on the net taxable sales of firearms dealers, manufacturers, and ammunition vendors, with the revenue—estimated at $39 million annually—directed (allegedly) toward crime victim services, mental health programs, and school safety initiatives. This measure is layered atop an existing 11% federal excise tax under the Pittman-Robertson Act and of course local sales taxes and fees.

Prop KK’s tax mirrors the structure of traditional sin taxes by targeting a specific good associated with perceived societal harm—gun violence—and using the proceeds to mitigate its effects. The parallels to historical and current sin taxes are striking. Like taxes on alcohol or tobacco, Proposition KK singles out firearms and ammunition as objects of moral concern, implying that their ownership and use contributes to a social ill that must be curbed or offset. The revenue allocation to victim services and mental health programs reinforces this framing, suggesting a direct link between gun ownership and a social ill with the need for remediation, much as cigarette taxes fund lung cancer research.

Most Firearm Ownership and Use is not Sinful

Professor David Yamane, a sociologist at Wake Forest University and author of Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor’s Surprising Journey Inside America’s Gun Culture and Concealed Carry Revolution, Liberalizing the Right to Bear Arms in America, offers a counterpoint to the sin tax framing of firearms. While he doesn’t directly address the issue of sin taxes, Professor Yamane’s work challenges what he calls “the standard model“ that gun ownership and use are inherently negative or deviant, instead presenting them as normal, rational behaviors for millions of Americans. Drawing on over a decade of research, he argues that guns are not merely tools of violence but hold diverse meanings—protection, sport, identity—for a broad cross-section of American society, cutting across racial, gender, and political lines.

Yamane’s central mantra is that “guns are normal and normal people use guns,” reflecting that the overwhelming majority of firearm use, contrary to that gun control groups portray is safe, legal, and non-lethal. He rejects much of dominant narrative in gun studies, which focuses narrowly on the negative effects of firearm use such as criminal violence, injury, and death, and instead highlights the everyday reality of the nearly 100 million American civilians who own firearms without harming anyone.

The sin tax approach—implicit in measures such as Proposition KK—mischaracterizes gun ownership by equating it with sin and vice. Unlike smoking, excessive drinking, or sugar consumption which have clear, direct links to widespread health issues, firearm ownership’s association with harm is far more contingent, tied to specific misuse rather than inherent properties. Most gun owners, he notes, are “judicious about the use of lethal force” and grapple with ethical concerns about taking life in self-defense situations, undermining the idea that their behavior warrants moral censure.

Sin Taxes: More Harm Than Good or Ineffective Deterrents?

Sin taxes, including those on firearms either do more harm than good or fail to discourage the targeted behavior. Historical and contemporary evidence supports this argument. Sin taxes on alcohol and tobacco, for instance, have often failed to significantly reduce consumption among heavy users—those most likely to cause harm—while disproportionately burdening lower-income individuals who can least afford the added cost. The creation of black markets, as seen in the past during Prohibition and today with cigarette smuggling in high-tax states like New York, illustrates how such taxes can spawn unintended consequences, including poor quality products and crime, rather than curbing it. It raises concerns of inequitable law enforcement too as evidenced by examples such as the police killing of Eric Gardner, a Black man, whose encounter with NYPD began when approached while selling individual cigarettes without NY’s tax stamp.

Applying this to firearms, Proposition KK’s 6.5% tax is unlikely to deter determined criminals, who often acquire guns illegally often via their own interstate supply chains or by theft. Law-abiding owners, meanwhile, face higher costs for exercising a constitutional right, potentially pricing out poorer individuals who seek firearms for self-defense—a need Yamane and in recent bill testimonies, hundreds of Colorado firearms owners note acknowledges as legitimate for many. In an era where Progressives, who dominate much of the state and often talk about such disparities, even though some nod to racist gun control laws, they seemingly have a blind spot here as they also do with firearms ownership and use in general.

Moreover, Yamane’s work suggests that framing gun ownership as a sin misrepresents its social role, driving a wedge between communities rather than fostering understanding. They are tools of both harm and protection, vice and virtue, depending on context or as Professor Yamane also says, ” guns are not either/or. ” By treating them as a monolith, measures like Proposition KK oversimplify a complex issue, doing more to signal disapproval than to solve problems.

Will Prop KK’s Taxation Scheme Work As Intended?

Prop KK’s revenue may eventually fund worthy programs, but its behavioral impact is dubious per a summary by the Rand Corporation which found little empirical evidence that firearms taxes meaningfully reduce gun violence. This lack of evidence is in part because little meaningful data have been collected to track the relationship between these taxes, prices, and purchase behavior over time. Furthermore, Are Sin Taxes Healthy for State Budgets? published by Pew Charitable Trusts suggests these sin tax regimes in general provide a short term and temporary budget boost but are not sustainable in the long run. This claim is intuitive as the entire purpose is to discourage via pricing the consumption of such products resulting in fewer purchases over time.

A look at common sin taxes and other related sin taxes in Colorado points to a trend we may see with the implementation of Prop KK which at a minimum will provide a temporary but possibly unpredictable revenue stream. Many law-abiding Colorado gun owners, already expressing understandable frustration with the deluge of gun control measures, are stating they’re either panic buying prior to April 1st or will take their business out of state, meaning less revenue for Prop KK. Colorado’s other onerous gun laws, both currently in the books and being heard this legislative session spell doom for the state’s thousands of hardworking firearms industry individuals. If these businesses go under or relocate to adjacent freedom-loving and pro-business states with lower tax regimes, this would mean far less Prop KK revenue.

In a recent interview (at the 24:30 mark of the video) on Free State Colorado, host Brandon Wark engaged in a discussion with Natalie Menten on taxation, fiscal policy, and TABOR issues. During the interview, they also highlighted the recent reductions in Colorado’s existing sin taxes, which include marijuana, tobacco/nicotine, and liquor. In the last five years, for example, marijuana taxes have seen a decrease of -10.7% in revenue between 2023 and 2024 after experiencing a major growth spurt during the COVID-19 pandemic. While Colorado’s marijuana regulatory and taxation scheme isn’t as onerous as California and New York’s, a black and grey market for these products has emerged. Tobacco and nicotine, despite increases in their taxation, see a smaller decrease of 3.5%, likely to get worse as the state’s largest city now bans flavored tobacco and vaping products, a popular and safer alternative to tobacco but still viewed by public health and puritanical nannies as a net negative. The ultimate goal for many against tobacco is zero use across society, which if it were to come to fruition would result in zero tax revenue from these products. Liquor taxes have stayed steady with a slight increase of 2.3%, but Colorado’s low taxes on that product are already in the eye of puritanical overlords demanding an increase.

Conclusion

Sin taxes originated as moral regulation masquerading as a fiscal necessity, taking root in America’s Puritanical ethos and evolving into a staple of modern policy especially in places where Progressivism dominates. Colorado’s Proposition KK extends this tradition to firearms, casting them as a societal ill akin to alcohol or tobacco. Yet, as Professor David Yamane demonstrates, the majority of firearm ownership and use are not sins but normalized, safe practices for millions, undeserving of the stigma sin taxes imply. Far from discouraging harmful behavior, such taxes risk exacerbating inequities and resistance while failing to address root causes—a pattern seen across sin tax history. Rather than taxing guns as a moral shortcut, Colorado might better heed Yamane’s call for curiosity and dialogue, seeking real solutions that respect the complexity of America’s gun culture.