Alphecca

Bullet Registration in CA

Where else, right? From the LA Times:

California lawmakers Thursday voted to require weapons manufacturers to ensure that all bullets and cartridges are branded with distinctive serial numbers.

Contained in two measures that are intended to help law enforcement solve cases, the proposal would be unique among states if approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The gun industry said the proposals were impractical and would force weapons makers to either write off the huge California market or adopt practices that would greatly increase the cost of their wares.

[...]

One of the proposals, from state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer and approved in the Senate, 21-14, would require manufacturers, starting in 2007, to stamp bullets sold in California with a identification number that police could trace to the store where the ammunition was sold.

"We can put individualized serial numbers on cartons of yogurt, on almost everything in society, with very little additional cost," said Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana), who sponsored the measure, SB 357.

The second measure, which was approved by the Assembly, 41-37, would mandate that all new semiautomatic handguns, starting in 2007, include technology that would stamp a distinguishing serial number onto a cartridge when it is fired. Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood), the sponsor of AB 352, said the markings "won't always lead to the criminal, but it will create leads" for police.

Though Koretz said no law enforcement groups opposed his bill, Republican lawmakers criticized it strongly. Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange) argued that criminals could plant spent shell casings to mislead investigators.

"I'm incredibly concerned about the ability to frame innocent people through the use of this technique," Spitzer said.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, wrote to Schwarzenegger last month that he was "strongly opposed to this proposal because of the harmful impact it will have on the manufacturers of ammunition used by our nation's armed services and law enforcement agencies."

Weapons weren't the only subject of clashes on the issue of special markings Thursday. The Senate approved, 22 to 16, the latest incarnation of legislation to allow some illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses.

First of all, requiring all ammo makers to re-tool their manufacturing facilities to stamp or etch (presumably with a laser) a numbering i.d. would be rather costly. They certainly don't want to do it for all ammo sold throughout the country (which would risk angering the rest of us) so there is a good possibility that they would stop selling ammo in California.

Secondly, this would increase the cost of ammunition for everyone, from weekend plinkers to Olympic hopefulls.

Thirdly, isn't this really just another ploy leading towards registration?

Fourth, remember last year when California lawmakers wanted to require gun stores to register all ammo purchases? Here's a quote from the details about that bill:

The bill requires that "all vendors of ammunition maintain specified information" on ammunition buyers, including: (1) the date of the transaction; (2) the name, address, and date of birth of the buyer; (3) the buyer's driver's license or other identification number and the state in which it was issued; (4) the brand, type, and amount of ammunition bought or transferred; (5) the buyer's signature; (6) the name of the salesperson who processed the transaction; and (7) "the vendor shall also at the time of purchase or transfer obtain the right thumbprint of the purchaser or transferee."

The information would have to be recorded on a special form provided by the State Department of Justice.

And what if a gun and its ammo is stolen? That's how the mutants in our society usually get their guns. And what if some ammo makers do decide to engrave bullets, but only for California? Sort of like the cars some automakers build only for there to meet stricter emission controls? Would the criminals (and the law-abiding -- I wouldn't blame them!) simply drive to a neighboring state to pick-up non-etched bullets?

Let's examine a mechanical aspect of this, too. I suppose bullet manufacturers could stamp something on the shell, as they do their trademark on the back, but to have an individual serial number requires a lot of digits -- considering how much ammo is sold. Not much space for it unless it was etched with a laser, probably on the side of the cartridge. But that could interfere with the normal feeding from the magazine of a firearm and possibly cause jams. Are California police willing to tolerate a greater incidence of gun jams when chasing armed suspects?

Further, in a premeditated murder, the thug could collect his shells, or use a revolver which doesn't spit them out the ejector port.

I suspect that the misguided lawmakers really want the bullets themselves etched as well, which would lead to a much greater likelihood of malfunction in a firearm as the cartridge is fed into the breech. Again, it is the cops that should be protesting this since they are the ones whose lives would be jeapardized the most. Or would California police agencies be allowed ("government by the people") to purchase un-marked ammo?

I suppose that i.d. numbers could be filed or sanded-off as well.

But this brings up another "slippery slope" problem since there are millions of firearms currently in the hands of California residents. Will all those guns NOT able to "imprint" a unique serial number on the bullets they fire, would they have to be confiscated to make such a draconian scheme work? Remember, this is the state that passed it's own "assault weapons" ban and then required gun owners to turn in these legally purchased and now -- suddenly illegal -- rifles. And don't tell me they would never do that because THEY DID. And we also saw such actions in England, Australia, Germany, and now it's happening in Canada. History DOES repeat itself and I put nothing past the gun-grabbing left in California.

All of this is really just one more attempt to burden and register the law-abiding gun owner. The criminals ignore all of this. The gang-bangers could care less about who they kill, with what they kill, and frankly, with getting caught; the revolving door justice-system puts little fear in them.

Now, with all this concern over fighting crime, did you notice the last paragraph of my quote from the LA Times? It wasn't a mistake. It was irony. Let me repeat it and include the next paragraph:

Weapons weren't the only subject of clashes on the issue of special markings Thursday. The Senate approved, 22 to 16, the latest incarnation of legislation to allow some illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses.

The proposed licenses would be specially designated so they could not be used as a broader form of identification. Democrats last year rejected the idea of a second tier of licenses, but the governor vetoed the proposal they passed, which would have allowed undocumented residents to have regular driver's licenses.

So with all of this worry about crime, Democratic lawmakers in California have decided that "illegal immigrants" should be able to obtain a driver's license! Oh, excuse me! "Undocumented residents!" For those who don't know, the bill Democrats rejected last year (for a differentiated license for these illegals) would have marked them as, uh, "undocumented", and that --their reasoning-- would have put the illegals at a disadvantage. So they scuttled it.

So they want to wink-and-nod at illegal immigrants -- folks who are breaking the law -- but they want to make it as expensive and difficult as possible for legal citizens to practice their Second Amendment rights. Pardon my french but is California fucked-up or what?

Posted by Jeff Soyer at June 4, 2005 07:08 AM