State and local officials are pushing a new way to expand gun control: taxes, reports Politico. Gun owners in and around Chicago last week started paying a new $25 tax on every firearm they purchase. In California, a statehouse panel on April 15 will hear testimony on a nickel-per-bullet tax measure. In New Jersey, lawmakers want to slap an additional 5 percent sales tax on guns and ammo. State legislators argue the case for why taxes should be part of the debate. “There are costs incurred as a result of gun violence which are borne by the general taxpayer – both social and economical,” said California Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, who put forward a nickel ammo tax proposal. “There ought to be a cost [ ] to those who want to buy firearms.” The effort to impose new taxes on guns and bullets faces serious opposition from pro-gun groups.Michael Hammond of Gun Owners of America called gun taxes “an effort to say the poor can't own firearms because we're going to impose a tax which they can't afford to pay.”