Bullet control
Via Manish, comes this article:
Legislation that would require handgun ammunition to carry identifying markings that could be used to trace spent rounds at crime scenes back to the person who purchased the bullets passed out of a state Senate committee Tuesday.
This won’t work. As for details of the bill:
It would require handgun manufacturers to mark bullets with unique identifiers, such as serial numbers. Those numbers would be used to track whom the bullets are sold to, including the name and address of the purchaser. The information would be maintained in an electronic database run by the attorney general’s office.
A bullet that travels at, say, 1,200 feet per second and hits the soft tissue of a person will mushroom. I tend to doubt that under those circumstances the tiny serial numbers would be readable since the bullet tends to become misshapen. I think this is really an effort to impose an undue burden on bullet manufacturers who will bear the costs.
I found this interesting too:
Noting that California homicides increased to 2,400 last year from 2,000 the year before — with 45 percent unsolved — law enforcement officials urged senators on the committee to vote for the bill. Nearly three-quarters of the state’s homicides in 2003 were committed with a firearm.
Meanwhile, crime is down in most of the country. Good thing they banned .50 calibers.
April 27th, 2005 at 9:23 am
G. Gordon Liddy mentioned in his autobiography that somebody (I think it was a civil servant in Treasury, maybe) proposed this way back during the Nixon administration. G. Gordon showed the guy a bullet and asked him where he thought they could print the serial number, producing a auto-forehead-slap.
April 27th, 2005 at 9:35 am
I bet it’s just MSM being confused on terms again, and really meant to print ‘shells’ or something similar. The key here is ‘…spent rounds…’ which suggests to me they’re thinking of what’s left behind after a gun is shot. It makes more sense for tracking purposes, although I don’t know how they’ll link the ammo to the purchaser.
April 27th, 2005 at 9:40 am
But people have a tendency to pick up shells.
April 27th, 2005 at 11:57 am
Then the crooks will just use revolvers so as not to leave brass lying around the crime scene.
April 27th, 2005 at 1:05 pm
Other than writing to my representives I’ll be writing to all hand gun ammunition manufactures urging them to follow Randy Barrett’s example in refusing to sell any ammo to any California government agency.
April 27th, 2005 at 8:39 pm
Nick,
I’ve seen this before. They are talking about imbedding microprinting all over the bullet. (similar to the printing around the photo of a twenty dollar bill)
Uncle,
The bullet manufacturers won’t bear the cost. The bullet purchasers will.
April 28th, 2005 at 2:41 am
Whadda ya bet that if this passes law enforcement will be exempt.
If it’s the cartridge case they want to identify expect brass-catcher sales to skyrocket.
In any case I’d hope that ammo manufacturers “Barrett” the state by not selling it ammo. I know I’d support a boycott of suppliers that sell to CA law enforcement and give my business to those who don’t.
May 4th, 2005 at 11:31 am
It’s not just the ammo manufactures that bear the costs. Next you need to track all that ammo. Every sporting goods store and Kmart in the state will need the computers and software required to input the information and id used to purchase the ammo. What about mail sales? Will it be illegal to sell ammo from Texas to Fornicalia?
The bill also makes it illegal to cast your own bullets.