Lawmakers push to reinstate SC's Gun Tax Holiday

COLUMBIA, SC -- Firearm enthusiasts might have something more to look forward to than sales at the mall this Black Friday if one Upstate lawmaker gets his way.

Rep. Mike Pitts (R-Laurens) put a proviso in this year’s budget that would reinstate a three-day gun tax holiday the weekend after Thanksgiving. The holiday, called “Second Amendment Weekend” was introduced at the start of the recession in 2008 to encourage buying but was cancelled last year because of the state’s shrinking budget.

This year revenues are higher than expected and Pitts said that the $13,000 of sales taxes the state won’t get from guns that weekend is really a drop in the bucket of a $22.5 billion budget.

Plus there’s a huge increase in the sale of other items like camouflage hunting gear, boots and ammunition that bring in more tax revenue and pump profits into small businesses.

Austin Jackson manages Palmetto Firearms in Columbia and said in 2010 the weekend nearly cleaned the store out and they weren’t even open on Sunday. He said just one tax-free day translates into a week or two of normal sales

“Typically people see how much they’re saving on the weapon itself on the sales tax and that’s a good means to buy other items, such as your holsters, apparel we sell here, tactical pants and shirts, ammunition, accessories for the weapons, lights, lasers, safes, it’s just an incentive to buy more when you save so much on the weapon itself,” Jackson said.

He also said that even though most of his store’s business comes from people seeking hand guns for self-defense, hunting weapons get an extra boost because the tax holiday falls in the middle of deer season.

Pitts said federal statistics that make it easy to track gun sales show the gun tax holiday weekends have generated a lot of business from neighboring North Carolina and Georgia.

He said critics say that people just wait to make their normal gun purchases until that weekend, he said data shows that not only was there a jump in sales those weekends, but for annual sales during the three years the holiday was in place.

“When this went in, when the recession was hitting the hardest, there were mom and pop operations out there, small gun stores and outdoor supply stores that told me ‘this saved our business, not because of the guns we sold but the residual sales, those people who bought more hunting equipment or outdoor supplies while they were waiting in line or shopping,’” Pitts said.

Right now the proviso is in the House Ways and Means Committee’s budget proposal after a 21 to 2 vote on it Tuesday. Pitts said he thinks that’s a good sign for when the budget gets to the House floor in the next week.