Proposition KK Aims to Fund Crime Victim and Mental Health Services With Excise Tax

Proposition KK, one of fourteen statewide measures on Colorado's November ballot, proposes a 6.5 percent excise tax on firearms, firearm parts and ammunition; revenues from the tax would be allocated to support crime victim services, mental health services for veterans and children, and improvements in school security.

Excise taxes on the sale of firearms are nothing new: Since 1919, a 10 percent federal excise tax has been placed on handguns and an 11 percent tax on all firearms and ammunition. In line with the federal excise tax, Proposition KK would place responsibility for the tax on the retailer or manufacturer of firearm products in Colorado, but would exempt those sellers with annual sales of less than $20,000, law enforcement officers and agencies, and active duty military members, as well as private sellers, according to Blue Book notes from the Colorado Legislative Council.

Proposition KK is estimated to generate up to $39 million in the first full year, on about $600 million of expected firearm and ammunition retail sales. Of this take, $30 million would be distributed to crime victim services, $5 million to veteran mental health services, $3 million to children and youth behavioral and crisis health services, and $1 million to school security grant programs.

Since 2018, community-based programs across the country that provide crime victim services have found their funding from the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) reduced as changes to federal prosecution policies regarding white-collar crime have shifted, says Representative Meg Froelich, who sponsored Proposition KK in the Colorado Legislature last session in an effort to correct this decrease.

According to Soledad Diaz, policy director for Violence Free Colorado, an organization providing community-based services to victims of domestic violence, VOCA funding went down 40 percent this year compared to 2023.
The Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault also suffered VOCA reductions. “We have no hope for a federal rebound of that funding,” says Elizabeth Newman, public policy director for CCASA, “and so we really need a Colorado solution. We need Colorado voters to invest in these critical services by funding them through a tax on those who are profiting from guns and ammunition.”

Because of TABOR, any new tax or tax increase must be approved by voters.

“I think this is again a relatively small change to the excise tax, and by supporting it, we will have created a permanent and sustainable mechanism to fund victim services, mental-health care and school safety in the state, and those are areas where we have a drop in federal funding,” says Senator Chris Hansen, who sponsored Proposition KK. “By supporting KK, we will have permanently solved that budget problem.”

Proposition KK is opposed by some gun retailers and manufacturers, as well as gun rights groups, that argue it is a violation of their Second Amendment rights. Because there is already a federal excise tax on firearm products, a state excise tax wouldn’t violate any constitutional measures, counters Hansen, who is a gun owner himself.

Rocky Mountain Gun Owners did not respond to requests for comments.

While Proposition KK does not put restrictions on guns, it still aims to correct the consequences of gun violence. When firearms are injected into domestic or mental-health crises, the level of violence can escalate, says Froelich, and while Proposition KK won’t necessarily reduce that violence, it will increase the services available to communities that deal with the impacts of that violence.

“No one is exempt from ever needing the services,” says Diaz. “We also hear a lot of the law-abiding citizens asking. 'Why do I have to pay for this?' Proposition KK is really contributing to having services that might benefit you, your friends, or your family."