I beleive that you have hit the nail precisely on the head in terms of Mr. Perata's goals with this measure. Now, I realize that it's far from a scientific survey, but virtually everyone I know learned to shoot with a .22. What's more American than a Saturday morning with your Dad, plinking at cans? If the cost goes from nine or ten bucks to thirty five or forty dollars, well, that's the end of that for a lot of folks. One good way to get rid of guns is to get rid of shooters. A really good way to do that is to make sure that no one teaches their kids to shoot.
Oh, and note that the tax is on bullets, not cartridges. Not that it matters for rimfire ammunition, but if folks were thinking of avoiding this by re-loading, forget it.
Actually, this is most likely dead this year, and will stay that way as long as the Reps manage to keep their their numbers from dwindling below the 1/3 mark in the assembly. But, as Mr. Young once observed, "rust never sleeps." Perata, or someone just like him will be back next year, and the year after that, and the year after that.