Via the Forum News Service, the Fergus Falls Journal has posted U.S. gun, ammo sales tax hit record high, an article telling subtitled, Federal tax on guns, ammo create windfall for conservation.
How much of a windfall for Minnesota? Heckova pot of cash:
Gun owners across the U.S. continued their unprecedented spending spree in 2014, buying firearms and ammunition at a record clip and, whether they knew it or not, pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into wildlife conservation programs. . . .
This summer, all that gun and ammo tax raised in 2014 is being doled out to state wildlife agencies across the country by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, including projects to help moose, pheasants, deer and waterfowl in Minnesota.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will get a whopping $24.9 million in 2015 based on last year’s gun and ammo sales — that’s the most ever, up from $23.3 million in 2014, more than double the state’s $11.2 million in 2012 and more than more than three times the $7 million the state got in 2006.
That money — so-called Pittman-Robertson funds — will be used to protect important wildlife habitat, count animals for population surveys, research wildlife health issues and buy and improve land to create wildlife management areas open for public hunting.
“It’s been an absolute boon for habitat programs the last few years. We’re doing more things than we ever could before,” said Tom Landwehr, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
The Obama bump
New gun and ammunition sales across the U.S. have surged since 2008, with the increase often attributed to President Barack Obama’s election. It appears that gun owners, fearing Washington might enact stronger anti-gun legislation with a Democrat in the White House, started hoarding new guns and ammo just in case.The massive increase in gun and ammo purchases, and in the federal tax revenue, has benefited wildlife, hunters, birdwatchers and others who relish nature. . . .
Who knew the dirty hippies would clean up on this? Somewhere in Minnesota, a moose-deer interaction study is ongoing, brainworm research fed by anti-Obama fever. So it goes.
Photo: A moose.
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