As a brick and mortar retailer of firearms, I can tell you that I lose quite a few sales to Internet providers. Often, I can match (and occasionally beat) the online price but the sales tax alone often pushes the customer to the Internet. With sales tax of nearly 8 percent, buying online saves customers $40 or more on a quality handgun. You start looking at higher end shotguns and the sales tax hit is considerable.
Collecting sales tax from online sales would help level the playing field for local brick and mortar merchants.
Also, cutting local governments out of sales tax revenues is only going to work for so long. Governments are not going to downsize or cut programs due to shrinking sales tax revenue. They’ll just find some other way to tax us. Without sales taxes, they’ll start bumping income taxes, fees, etc. They’ll get their money somehow.
Yes, it is not fair for the B&M retailer. I have purchased guns locally at a higher price to simply support the local retailer. However, most purchases were online to cut out the sales tax. Ammo shipping costs versus local tax were always determined. But if the cost was close, why not take the front door delivery.