Posted on 06/06/2005 10:03:29 AM PDT by 45Auto
An anti-gun group in California says it is making progress on what it calls anti-crime bills.
The California Million Mom March is holding "lobby day" in Sacramento on Monday -- an occasion to urge lawmakers and the governor to turn two recently passed bills into law.
Those two bills include SB 357, which would require that all handgun ammunition bought and sold in California have serial numbers engraved on it.
According to the California Million Mom March, "When someone buys a box of bullets, the bar code and the buyers' identification will be entered into a state Justice Department database. Serialized bullets recovered at crime scenes will help police track the ammunition."
SB 357, sponsored by Attorney General Bill Lockyer, passed the California Senate last week on a 21-14 vote and now moves to the Assembly.
A second bill, AB 352, would require all new semiautomatic handguns sold in California after 2007 to be equipped with a "micro-stamping" system.
When the gun is fired, the bullet casing would be automatically inscribed with the firearm's serial number. The data on the gun also would be stored in an existing state Justice Department database
AB 352 passed the Assembly on a 41-38 vote and now goes to the Senate.
According to the California Million Mom March, the two bills will give police the evidence they need to capture criminals who use handguns to commit murders and other crimes.
"It's simple," said Griffin Dix of the California Million Mom March: "Do we want to catch murderers or not?"
Dix said law enforcement officers "are demanding these new crime-fighting tools to help them catch many more criminals who use handguns." He said in almost half of California murders, no arrest is made because of lack of evidence. Two-thirds of murders committed every year in California are committed with handguns, he added.
"If these proposals become law, police will get the tools they are demanding and Californians will be safer."
But Second Amendment supporters say California gun owners would be unfairly penalized if the bills become law.
That's because gun makers, faced with the expensive task of etching bullets and micro-stamping semiautomatic weapons, would either stop selling their wares in California or drastically raise prices.
"This legislation could essentially ban all semi-automatic pistols commonly used by California gun owners," said the Institute for Legislative Action, the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association.
Critics also complain that the bills amount to a gun registration scheme.
Go ahead, it matters not to me. I am a potential felon many times over for the California gun laws that I willfully fail to comply with now. What's one or two more?
The government will be only as opressive as the people allow it to be.
Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars. (THR)
IN spite of the liberals, I'm going shooting myself soon. Only hard part is finding a good range around here.
"When the gun is fired, the bullet casing would be automatically inscribed with the firearm's serial number..."
The legislators and backers of the bill want the gun companies to R&D the technology and pay for its implementation. Sounds like an unfunded mandate.
Crazy Law.
ok, this is really lame.
how can they pass into law requirements which are physically impossible to follow? how can they even dare to attempt it?
When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.
Good for you.
""It's simple," said Griffin Dix of the California Million Mom March: "Do we want to catch murderers or not?" "
Sure, so when is she going to start calling for heavy duty safes to lock up those "Assault Knives" she leaves out on her kitchen counter in plain and easy access by children and minorities?
it is not only expensive, it is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
nothing precise enough and tunable enough to create such "microstamping" of UNIQUE SERIAL NUMBERS or bar codes is robust enough to survive more than a very few shots, if any.
To be a an anti-gun communist, one must believe that there is so much gun violence that we should ban guns, but if a person desires a gun for protection from all that violence then they are just being paranoid.
Yeah, the toughest gun laws in the country exist in Washington, DC. And those laws have not prevented thousands of murders over the years in the nation's capital. More laws of this nature, anywhere in America, will not make that jurisdiction safer. Hell, we can't even enforce the laws on the books now. How silly and stupid.
Psssst....tell these million mom boobs that criminals don't follow laws . They never have and never will.......
When the gun is fired, the bullet casing would be automatically inscribed with the firearm's serial number. The data on the gun also would be stored in an existing state Justice Department database
The case wouldn't be too hard to stamp. Either etch the chamber so that a serial number is left after the case expands during firing, or else have a microstamp on the firing pin.
Trouble is, like most liberal ideas, it may sound good to a layman to propose, but it would only take a criminal 30 seconds with a file to defeat either system.
Last time I checked, murder is against the law, yet people are still murdered in Kalifornia. Passing a law doesn't mean that bad people will comply.
The Second Amendment...
America's Original Homeland Security!
Be Ever vigilant!
Because the people making the laws are stupid. Or really smart. Make something impossible or very expensive to manufacture and suppliers and consumers will give up.
I'll answer that as soon as I am out of my transporter.
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