Once again, a legislative proposal has been raised in Connecticut going after the law-abiding gun-owner.  Rep. Jillian Gilchrest, a West Hartford Democrat, has co-sponsored a bill that would apply an excise tax on ammunition.  The tax, of three to five cents per round, would be dedicated to funding community gun violence and intervention program grants. 

As a gun-owner, I believe in programs to mitigate gun violence.  I don't believe in taxing gun-owners to cover the cost of those programs simply because they have chosen to own guns.  If a tax is to be levied, everyone should absorb it, because gun-owners are no more committing such violence than everyone else.  

Required to take safety training courses in order to obtain a firearm, gun-owners hold enormous respect for the power of the pistol as well as the fragility of life when the two meet.  It is exceedingly discriminatory to lump all gun-owners together, whereby both criminals and law-abiding gun-owners are viewed as one and the same.  We are not the same.  Nor should we be punished as such by making it even more difficult to purchase bullets during inflationary times.

Additionally, the guy shooting targets at the local range is not the same guy illegally crossing the border with a pound of fentanyl tucked between his cheeks and a few threaded barrels strapped to him.  One is having a bit of fun, and the other is here to harm.

Ironically, if we built the wall, closed the border, and funneled all the money we are wasting by not doing so to gun violence programs, we'd have less need for gun violence programs because gun violence, as well as all violence, would drop.

Law-abiding gun-owners aren't running around shooting people.  Seems to me that these programs are once again a means of catering to those who weaken our nation at the expense of those who strengthen it.  Good, hardworking people who happen to like guns for sport or protection must now reach into their pockets for woke programs that have already shown themselves to be fruitless.  Violence isn't raging because of guns, but because of the people pulling the trigger, both criminals and those like Gilchrest, who continue to pretend they are doing something through programs like these but really aren't.  I think we all are just about done with the smoke and mirrors we've been living with for far too long.

Doesn't it ever get exhausting to figure out how many ways our government can rob the American people?  There is a big difference between truly helping and helping oneself.

Laura J. Wellington is the founder of THREAD MB, author, award-winning children's television creator, TEDx Speaker, and founder of the ZNEEX app.

Image: National Archives.