Tagging ammo
Looks like Cali is trying to lead the way:
California could become the first state in the nation to require semi-automatic handguns include microscopic equipment for pressing an identifying mark into every bullet fired.
Through newly developed technology, the firing pin of a semi-automatic weapon can stamp the gun’s make and model onto a bullet shell as it leaves the chamber. The technology could help police investigate homicides and trace gun trafficking.
Thirty-three California police chiefs and two county sheriffs support a bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, that would require the markers.
Ammo prices would go up and more people would reload. As pointed out in comments, this would be done via firing pin and ammo wouldn’t really matter. Sorry, no coffee yet.
April 24th, 2006 at 7:40 am
“Ammo prices would go up and more people would reload.” — I think the stamping mechanism is the firing pin. The ammo doesn’t come pre-stamped, but rather the firing pin (or chamber, in other incarnations) stamps the firing pin (or casing) with a serial number during firing.
So, instead, Brownell’s might see an upturn in sales of firing pins. Or, home depot might sell a little more sand paper.
April 24th, 2006 at 7:56 am
Good point. For some reason, I was thinking something else.
April 24th, 2006 at 8:07 am
Message: use a revolver. Or wrap a handkerchief around it to catch spent shells. Or use a nail file on the pin.
And lovely comment by sponsor, that criminals would not use a file on the pin because they don’t now. Wow, some great logic there!
April 24th, 2006 at 8:50 am
Further encumber those trying to be law abiding, while requiring something easy to circumvent by lawbreakers. Where have I heard of that before?
Of course, when this is ignored by the bad guys, it’s just one more reason to pass even more restrictive gun laws, maybe they will try to throttle the open sale of spare parts, like extractors, firing pins, and replacement barrels.
Hell, why not a BATFE form and tracking for every single gun part purchase, including private sales. You’ve got nothing to hide, right? As you can planly tell, by the tracking of every purchase of cold medicine, we’ve totally solved the meth problem. right?
April 24th, 2006 at 9:36 am
This comes from the same people who wanted TEC9 and AK rifles banned because they were ‘easily convertable’ to full-auto?
April 24th, 2006 at 9:57 am
Like teqjack was saying, this will be useless for revolvers.
April 24th, 2006 at 10:45 am
And useless for anything, since every gangbanger will be using a piece of emory cloth on the firing pin, whether they know WHY they are doing it or not.
April 24th, 2006 at 10:59 am
Uncle,
“For some reason, I was thinking something else” I bet you were thinking of a previous hare-brained idea CA had earlier that would have been solved by handloading. They talked about serializing bullets in commercially loaded ammunition and then registering them by box at the point of sale.
April 24th, 2006 at 11:01 am
Oh, and another thing… why is this necessary if “ballistic fingerprinting” is such a great idea? If you’ve got a “fingerprint” why do you need anything else? /snark
April 24th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
I just hope that, should this bit of moronitude pass, pistol makers would take a page from Ronnie Barret’s book and stop selling to the PRK.
I’d like to see what they’d do when their PDs couldn’t get new guns.
April 24th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
If this ID is etched into the tip of the firing pin, is emery cloth necessary, or would the ID wear off at the firing range by the time you were confident of hitting your target? And would the Kalifornia Kops arrest people for having worn the ID stamp out? Finally, I assume that this bill exempts police departments, like all the other impractical “banning through regulation” bills that I have seen.
So, if it’s the firing pin, it’s of limited effectiveness even for those who don’t bother to sand it off. If it’s an added mechanism that would double the price of a CA gun, I certainly hope the gun makers will take a united stand. They don’t have to refuse to sell the PD’s any handgun, just ones that don’t conform to CA law for civilians – and one compelling reason for doing this is to ensure that they don’t get hauled into court later after the police have lost or auctioned off their non-serialized guns and these guns start turning up at crime scenes. So, let the PDs find out that their gun purchases are going to cost twice as much and their choices are very, very limited…
April 24th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
the whole issue is irrelevant until you can guarantee the bad guys will register their guns, as if it wasn’t stolen to start with.
April 24th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
[…] An aside. So I go the site linked by Say Uncle and in the middle of the page I see a photo of some guy holding up a piece of brass, just to the right is an ad for auto insurance. I think to myself for a fleeting moment “cool, a gun insurance ad right there on the same page.” […]
April 25th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
I find it rather telling that only 33 Police Chiefs (out of how many cities in the state?) and only 2 out of the 58 Sheriffs support it.
Thems some seriously LOW percentages. Wonder why the reporter didn’t mention that.