Gun License Fees and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for Self-Defense

From Prof. Eugene Volokh, opining on the constitutionality of taxes and fees on guns and gun owners:

After McDonald, and the newly enacted Chicago handgun ordinance, people are again turning to whether and when gun license fees are unconstitutional. I’ve heard some argue that under existing constitutional rules applicable to other rights — especially the First Amendment — any fee for the exercise of a constitutional right is per se unconstitutional. But rightly or wrongly, that turns out not to be the case. Here’s an excerpt from my Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Self-Defense article, with most of the citations omitted; see PDF pp. 100–102 to find all the citations.

Taxes on guns and ammunition ... would be substantial burdens [which I argue should be unconstitutional –EV] if they materially raised the cost of armed self-defense. A $600 tax proposed by Cook, Ludwig & Samaha, justified by an assertion that “keeping a handgun in the home is associated with at least $600 per year in externalities,” is one such example. “The poorly financed [self-defense] of little people,” like their “poorly financed causes,” deserves constitutional protection as much as the self-defense of those who can afford technologically sophisticated new devices or high new taxes. (See Martin v. City of Struthers, 319 U.S. 141, 146 (1943) (striking down ban on door-to-door solicitation, partly on the grounds that “[d]oor to door distribution of circulars is essential to the poorly financed causes of little people”); see also City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43, 56 (1994) (striking down ban on display of signs at one’s home, partly on the grounds that “[r]esidential signs are an unusually cheap and convenient form of communication. Especially for persons of modest means or limited mobility, a yard or window sign may have no practical substitute.”).) This is true whether the tax ... is imposed on gun owners directly, or on gun sellers or manufacturers, just as a restriction on abortion can be a substantial burden even if it’s imposed on doctors and not on the women who are getting the abortions. ...

Read the rest here.