In Bill Roberts’ guest column on Sunday with the headline, “Tax the daylights out of some ammunition,” Roberts said, “most gun crimes involve only a few types of ammunition – and not the kind hunters use.”
This is completely untrue. Most crimes are committed with handguns. And 9mm is the most common caliber for handguns. That is true not only of handguns used by criminals but also law-abiding citizens and police.
What about those AR-15s we hear so much about? They are chambered in .223 or the metric equivalent 5.56. By far, most AR-15s are used by law abiding citizens. The 5.56 and .223 are also very commonly used for varmint hunting. That would be raccoons up to coyotes.
I don’t own an AR-15 but I do have a bolt action hunting rifle chambered in .223.
Gun crimes involve the same ammunition that law-abiding citizens use. Taxing certain ammunition will never affect criminals more than the rest of us.
David Norman
Durango
