By: Teresa Mull

GPM reported last week that the San Jose city council unanimously voted in favor of imposing a yearly tax and mandatory insurance on gun owners living in the city.

Although the exact fee for owning a gun in San Jose is still up in the air, city officials revealed that anyone who doesn’t comply with the ordinances will have their weapons confiscated.

Not content to keep his despotic rules to his own city, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo visited the White House to encourage Joe Biden to adopt similar policies at the national level.

The Mercury News reports:

Liccardo said he used Monday’s meeting to provide the president and his senior advisors with more details about San Jose’s gun control reforms but also to hear about methods and programs that other cities are attempting.

“This is a reality that is afflicting every big city in the nation,” he said in an interview. “And it’s going to take a lot of collaboration. Certainly, the federal government can help and cities can learn from one another about the best ideas that are having the most impact.”

Biden said during the conference:

We recognize that we have to come together to fulfill the first responsibility of a democracy. That’s to keep each other safe. And that’s what the American people are looking for when it comes to reducing violent crime and gun violence.

Liccardo’s victory lap comes at the same time a new report has found record gun sales did not cause a spike in crime.


Rather than allege “more guns, more crime,” the study’s author told the Guardian, “We need to be looking at other factors, like job loss, economic change, the closure of schools and community organizations and nonprofits, and civil unrest.”

What’s more, our friends at the National Foundation for Gun Rights (NFGR) are in the processing of challenging the legality of San Jose’s recently proposed ordinances.

A portion of the letter is reprinted below from NFGR’s website:

National Foundation for Gun Rights sends Cease and Desist letter to San Jose City Council, Mayor and City Attorney

Loveland, CO – The National Foundation for Gun Rights is demanding the San Jose Mayor and City Council to put an end to their efforts to impose a tax on a select group of law-abiding citizens simply for exercising their right to keep and bear arms.

On June 19th the city of San Jose voted unanimously to draft an ordinance imposing a mandatory fee on gun owners to cover the costs of “gun violence.” Additionally they voted to force gun owners to purchase gun liability insurance.

In a press release the city concedes that “criminals won’t obey these mandates” leaving the entire burden to be borne by law abiding gun owners.

“This a full-frontal assault on lawful gun owners by the gun control zealots running the city of San Jose,” said Dudley Brown, Executive Director of the National Foundation for Gun Rights. “The city brazenly admits in their own press release that the burden of extra insurance and fees will ONLY be on the law-abiding.”

The National Foundation for Gun Rights is exploring all legal options to oppose imposition of any forthcoming ordinance that would impose fees or burdensome insurance on citizens for exercising a constitutionally protected right.

“Punishing law-abiding gun owners for the actions of criminals is the kind of insane behavior NFGR has come to expect from bureaucrat gun control idiots like the ones that run San Jose,” said Brown.

The full text of the cease and desist letter may be found by clicking here.

Teresa Mull ([email protected]) is editor of Gunpowder Magazine.