HR 1883 - Secure Gun Storage

[Outlaw Man]

U.S. HR 1883 would provide a $1200 tax credit on the purchase of a safe.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr1883
Text not yet available.

Here's the release from the Representative's website:
Rep. John R. Carter

The NRA, GOA, and NSSF have backed this bill. Seems like the most "common sense" legislation proposed this year. This looks to be one we can get behind.

 

[ThorinNNY]

Great, claim a tax refund for a gun safe. Now the IRS KNOWS exactly where to send Homeland inSecurity or other Federal or State Agency to confiscate your guns next time there`s an "emergency" either caused by nature or manufactured out of whole cloth by some government bureaucrat.

 

[MErl]

Great, more mucking with the tax code.

question is, is there then a requirement for "proper" storage.

 

[X-Rap]

Don't you just love it when the gov tries to help.

 

[Sam1911]

Meh! If they don't know by now, I don't think this one more "clue" is gong to help them!

Heck, a $1,200 credit on a safe? Heck I'll take a bite of that socialist action!

(Wonder if it's ok with them if the 'safe' has a compressor and insulation? 'Cause at the moment we need a refrigerator more...LOL!)

 

[Outlaw Man]

Sam, maybe you can get one of those padlockable fridges...

The NSSF email I saw claimed that there was a clause to prohibit a registry, but I'd like to see how that's worded.

 

[sota]

my upright freezer has a small barrel lock on the side. just as an idea, Sam

 

[itsa pain]

outlaw man you need a new name lol

 

[herrwalther]

I can see the attempt to help with this bill. Adam Lanza (according to most reports) stole his mother's firearms after he killed her. My idea is what is safe storage? Who will determine safe storage? For a single guy with no wife, kids, roommates etc would a locking closet for his grandfather's 30-30 be safe storage? Or would he need to put a burden on himself to buy an approved safe? Would a top of the line Liberty safe be sufficient for the inspectors?

 

[beatledog7]

An old fridge makes a very good ammo locker, proved one doesn't overload the shelving. I have a marginally working side-by-side that sits unplugged in the garage and could easily be locked in a manner to keep the honest honest without any drilling or modification.

A determined thief with tools could get in easily enough, but it would take him five minutes or so, and unless he knew what he's after in there he might not even bother. Looks like a beer fridge to anyone who's not looking for ammo.

Aside:

But like Sam, I'm no fan of further complications in the federal tax code. What we need from the federal government is simple, straightforward, constitutionally sound laws. In addition to the Constitution itself, a couple dozen federal laws and regulations ought to be about right.

 

[Ed Ames]

Or would he need to put a burden on himself to buy an approved safe? Would a top of the line Liberty safe be sufficient for the inspectors?

California's rules are probably a pretty good example of what to expect. Obviously there are no guarantees but it gives an example of what legislators have done in the past.

All of the following requirements:

Shall be able to fully contain firearms and provide for their secure storage;
Shall have a locking system consisting of at minimum a mechanical or electronic combination lock. The mechanical or electronic combination lock utilized by the safe shall have at least 10,000 possible combinations consisting of a minimum three numbers, letters, or symbols. The lock shall be protected by a case-hardened (Rc 60+) drill-resistant steel plate, or drill-resistant material of equivalent strength;
Boltwork shall consist of a minimum of three steel locking bolts of at least ½ inch thickness that intrude from the door of the safe into the body of the safe or from the body of the safe into the door of the safe, which are operated by a separate handle and secured by the lock;
Shall be capable of repeated use. The exterior walls shall be constructed of a minimum 12-gauge thick steel for a single-walled safe, or the sum of the steel walls shall add up to at least .100 inches for safes with two walls. Doors shall be constructed of a minimum of two layers of 12-gauge steel, or one layer of 7-gauge steel compound construction;
Door hinges shall be protected to prevent the removal of the door. Protective features include, but are not limited to: hinges not exposed to the outside, interlocking door designs, dead bars, jeweler’s lugs and active or inactive locking bolts.

or

All of the following requirements:

Is listed as an Underwriters Laboratories Residential Security Container;
Is able to fully contain firearms;
Provides for the secure storage of firearms

http://oag.ca.gov/firearms/gunsafe

In other words, a stack-on gun locker qualifies, as does a bottom-of-the-line Liberty "safe".

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

Great, claim a tax refund for a gun safe. Now the IRS KNOWS exactly where to send Homeland inSecurity or other Federal or State Agency to confiscate your guns next time there`s an "emergency" either caused by nature or manufactured out of whole cloth by some government bureaucrat.

For what it's worth:

The Secure Firearms Act includes:

1. Up to a $1,200 tax deduction to purchase a gun safe and/or security devices through December 31, 2014.
2. A prohibition on the IRS use of tax deduction claims to produce any form of gun owner registration.

http://carter.house.gov/press-relea...ce-gun-violence-introduced-by-carter-cuellar/

 

[beatledog7]

1. Up to a $1,200 tax deduction to purchase a gun safe and/or security devices through December 31, 2014.
2. A prohibition on the IRS use of tax deduction claims to produce any form of gun owner registration.

What if I bought mine in 2011? Can I still file for the credit?

There is simply no way you can convince me that the federal government has no interest in a broad registration of our firearms.

Regulations and declarations to the contrary, every new "make us safer" proposal has two things in common: 1) They would provide enough information to make such a registry viable. 2) They will not us safer. I'm no tinfoil hat wearer, just a rational person who watches government power grow and grow and can do the math.

From the Rep Carter website:

Mass shootings at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora, and Newtown all involved people who should not have had access to firearms [emphasis added].

This statement is beyond silly. When do you suppose there will be a mass shooting and we'll decide the shooter was someone who should have had access to firearms? Someone who commits such an act will always be declared unfit after the fact, no matter his or her qualifications before the act.

 

[X-Rap]

So we are supposed to lock up all our guns so no non adult family members have access to a firearm?

2. A prohibition on the IRS use of tax deduction claims to produce any form of gun owner registration.

I wouldn't trust them for a minute, but I also would suspect that they could probably use credit card transactions to compile a similar list but having the lemmings line up for their tax deduction makes all of it voluntary.

 

[aka108]

Get a safe and tell the govt you are a gun owner and where you are? Hell, you are on this form and most likely some other similare ones. You've already given yourself away. Same if you subscribe to some gun rag or purchased any firearm or related items on your credit card. 1200 dollar credit. I'll take it. If it allows a deduction for a gun safe it's not worth much if you don't have other deductions in excess of the std deduction. If a tax credit, OK. This thing won't stand a chance of getting passed howerver.

 

[X-Rap]

So when this voluntary system works so good that they decide it should be mandatory then what?
How are safe storage regulations enforced?
Does someone from the gov come and inspect your installation?
Do they need to see all your safes or just one?

Seems to me that the camels have almost surrounded the tent and are sniffing around the edge.

 

[Ed Ames]

So when this voluntary system works so good that they decide it should be mandatory then what?

It already basically is. If you leave your guns unsecured and a kid finds one and shoots somebody with it, you are not only going to be crucified by the mainstream media, and by THR members, and by everyone you know, but by a jury and some lawyers too.

How are safe storage regulations enforced?

As an enhancement or as criteria for determining other charges. However, this tax credit doesn't have storage regs from what I've seen. It's like the Child Tax Credit...the gov't isn't forcing anyone to have kids, just giving money to the people who do.

Does someone from the gov come and inspect your installation?

You can bet that if something happens today, if a kid shoots herself with your gun, you'll have someone from the gov't inspecting everything they can.

If you are talking about this tax thing, I suspect it's exactly like every other tax credit you can claim. If you claim a credit for installing energy efficient windows, does someone come out and inspect them? No.

Do they need to see all your safes or just one?

For what? If someone takes one of your guns and shoots their brother, the gov't will want to see all of your safes. Short of that, what makes you think they'll want to see any of them?

 

[tyeo098]

If you claim a credit for installing energy efficient windows, does someone come out and inspect them? No.

When was the last time energy efficient windows were crucified by the media and the right to own them has been incrementally withered away over the past 200 years?

 

[Ed Ames]

Are you kidding?

First, you have it backwards. It is NOT having energy efficient windows, and NOT having your guns locked up in a safe, that is under attack.

And yes, the right to own the sort of windows you want has been under constant attack since the first time somebody decided they could accomplish their goals more easily by lobbying legislators than by convincing potential buyers of the merits of their products. It's called "regulatory capture" and it ends up being a major part of every government.

I'm not a fan of this sort of tax game, but that's what it is...a tax game.

Are you familiar with the term "threat fixation"? Because that's what you are engaged in. You have locked on to registries and while you are distracted there, real harm is being done right in front of you but you aren't seein it.

The reality is that registries are irrelevant today. They are old thinking. They are a waste of money, yes, but concern over them is a sign of someone who hasn't been paying attention to either computers or civil liberties.

The reality is that all sorts of information is being collected by everyone you do business with. UPS keeps track of every shipment they've ever done. Retailers track every purchase you have ever made. The CC companies have years (perhaps decades) of transaction records. Your ISP has records. This forum has records. There are billions of records that are about you, but they are legally the business records of the businesses you buy from and therefore legally you have no privacy protection regarding those records. The government can and does pay third parties to buy that information and correlate it to provide a complete demographic picture of everything about people they are interested in, or query for people fitting specific profiles. This is the same technology used to target ads and mailings to you, which means it is being constantly refined and improved. The odds that you could be a shooter (not just someone with a gun they found and hid) today without being easily identifiable as a gun owner are, well, there really are no odds worth giving. If you have searched for gun in Google, bought ammo at with plastic, if you have taken your cell phone with you to a shooting range or gun store, you are...

Not on a registry, but identifiable through a query that spans those databases.

But that's a civil liberties issue, not a gun registry issue.

 

[Teachu2]

If this goes through, and your cautious nature/paranoia keeps you from claiming the credit, that's OK. Nobody is required to take tax credits.

 

[tyeo098]

First they make it voluntary, then they make it mandatory. THAT is how the government works. Its incrementalism. Its what has been happening for the last 200 years.

Just look at NY, the ultimate goal was to ban >10rd mags. So they started off with banning 'new production' ones and people were okay with that. Wait a generation or so and the people who grew up with no 'new production' mags really saw no use for ANY >10rd mags, therefore the government could pass the law banning ALL >10rd mags.

This will be the same way. They want to criminalize people who dont have safes that meet 'their standard' so first the set the standard veeery low, and make it voluntary. Then, with the low standard in place, wait 10 years and make it mandatory. The standard is low, its easy.

Then over the next 10-20 years slowly raise the standard until we're talking 5000$ safes for someone who owns a single handgun. And its REQUIRED.

I'm not worried about a registry. I'm well aware of what tracking companies are doing with my data, there are 4 of them here on THR trying to watch me, Google Adsense, Google Analytics, Viglink and Quantcast. I have them all blocked the same all the trackers are on other websites.

I'm also well aware of the 'Utah Data Centre' that is going to sift through all the traffic on the internet. Thats now what I'm worried about. I'm worried about the incrementalism and 'common sense' BS that is slowly destroying our rights.

 

[herrwalther]

California's rules are probably a pretty good example of what to expect. Obviously there are no guarantees but it gives an example of what legislators have done in the past.

I am aware of CA DOJ regulations for safe storage. They are on the side of my Winchester RSC to meet those regulations. My problem you could say is when non gun friendly states are used as the template for the rest of the country. That scares me. For example in NY, there are hopes that 7 round magazines become the example to the country. California has not been the leading example for firearm owners.

Also to be fair, I have no problem locking up my firearms. When I was still living with my parents in NYS, they required me to have them locked up. Youngest person in the house and only one who knew how to use them. I still use the same safe to keep my soon to be children out. I don't have an issue with locking them up, just someone saying how.

 

[Ed Ames]

...Thats now what I'm worried about. I'm worried about the incrementalism and 'common sense' BS...

Then this is an odd place to make a stand.

Tax incentives like this are part of the path of crony capitalism and regulatory capture. Totally different mechanism, with a different end result, from restriction incrementalism. This is the path that gives us concealed carry licenses...with silly training requirements, because a good share of the people pushing for the permits see providing required training as a good way to make money doing nothing.

I am aware of CA DOJ regulations for safe storage. They are on the side of my Winchester RSC to meet those regulations. My problem you could say is when non gun friendly states are used as the template for the rest of the country.

Well you (I guess it was you) were coming up with some bizarre and unlikely scenarios.

The reality is that this sort of thing is regulatory capture, which means it's pushed by businesses that have something to sell. In other words, RSC manufacturers. The RSC manufacturers are going to push for definitions that meet the products they already sell because otherwise the exercise is unprofitable.

 

[tyeo098]

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

We do not need more government handouts in exchange for what may come down the road later.

 

[Ed Ames]

They already have the tax in place. This is a proposal to reduce taxes for individuals who meet certain criteria.