Kalifornia to ban handgun ammo (effectively)

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Eric1115

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Oct 12, 2004
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Hey, anybody heard about SB 357? It passed the California Senate about 3 weeks ago 21-14, and has moved on to the Assembly.

From the California Attorney General's office:


SACRAMENTO) - Attorney General Bill Lockyer, Sen. Joe Dunn and Senate President pro Tem Don Perata today unveiled legislation to help law enforcement personnel solve firearms-related homicide investigations.

SB 357, authored by Dunn, co-authored by Perata and sponsored by the Attorney General would create a new "bullet serialization" system that will allow investigating officers to trace bullets recovered from crime scenes to the person who purchased the ammunition.

"Gang-related gun violence is one of the fastest growing concerns for communities throughout California," Lockyer said. "We are losing too many of our young people to seemingly random shootings and anonymous killers. SB 357 will strip criminals of their anonymity and give law enforcement evidence it can use to quickly and effectively solve more gun crimes."

The new system would require every bullet sold or manufactured in California to be affixed with an identifier. When an ammunition vendor sells handgun bullets to a purchaser, the vendor would match the identifier on the ammunition with the purchaser, and then log the match into an electronic database run by the Attorney General's Office. When a bullet is recovered from a crime scene where a firearm is used, law enforcement investigators will be able to check the bullet for the identifier and match it with a purchaser.

"With the passage of SB 357, California will bring law enforcement investigative tools into the modern age," Dunn said. "This system will be an important new tool to help law enforcement personnel identify and convict violent felons and murderers."

In 2003, over 72 percent (1,733) of California homicides were committed with a firearm. Almost 45 percent of these homicides were unsolved. Additionally, 63,597 robberies were reported in 2003, with armed robbery accounting for 53.9 percent (34,252) of these crimes. A firearm was used in 64.7 percent (22,161) of all armed robberies. Only 27.1 percent of robberies were solved in 2003.

"SB 357 offers crime scene investigators a valuable new tool to help solve and deter crimes," Perata said. "Numbers on bullets mean criminals off streets."

Specifically, SB 357 does the following:

Requires all handgun ammunition manufactured or sold in California to be marked with a unique identifier.
The identifier would then be associated with the purchaser of the handgun ammunition at the point of sale and maintained in an electronic database run by the Attorney General's Office.
Requires all vendors and manufacturers who conduct handgun ammunition sales in the state to register with the Attorney General's Office.
Assesses vendor and end-user fees to pay for the costs of the program.
Creates criminal and civil penalties for individuals and corporations who circumvent the requirements of SB 357.
A graphic representation of how bullet serialization works and photos of serialized bullets fired into car doors can be found here.




Basically, every handgun bullet sold (or possessed) in California needs to be laser etched with a serial number. Actually not exactly a serial number, as each round in a box will have the same number. More like lot numbers. Still, it would basically kill the market for handgun ammo, and also effectively outlaw handloaders. Not cool.

PS, if this is more appropriate for Political or somewhere else, I apologize. Feel free to move it to wherever you see fit, mods.
 
These are just more examples of trying to use technological solutions to socioloical problems.

Technology can help sometimes. But, in general, it doesn't get to the root of the problem. On the other hand, sometime lawmakers don't want to get to the root of the problem for one of two reasons: first, it's hard work to dig out the root. Second, it's dirty work to dig out the root.

Problem: Children are watching to much sexual content and violence on TV.

Solution? Shall we ask why TV stations and networks are programming so much sexual content and violence? No; that's a very messy question. Shall we ask why parents are allowing their children to watch so much sexual content and violence, so much TV in general? No; those are very hard and very messy questions. Instead, let's equip every TV set, by law, with a V-Chip, a technological solution to a sociological problem which avoids all those messy and difficult issues. Of course, it hasn't done much good.

Problem: Children are looking at porn on the internet and being stalked by preditors online.

Solution? Shall we ask why there's so much porn on the internet? No; that's a very messy question. Shall we ask why these preditors are stalking children at all? No; again, very messy and very difficult too. Shall we ask why parents aren't supervising their children on the internet? No; very messy. Instead, let's equip every computer, by law, with a content filter chip, a technological solution to a sociological problem which avoids all those messy and difficult issues.

Problem: Criminals are using guns to commit crimes.

Solution? Shall we ask why these criminals are committing crimes or how they're getting guns? No; those are difficult and messy questions. Shall we ask why victims aren't firing back? Heavens NO!; that's a potentially very messy question. No. Instead, let's equip every gun, by law, with a smart chip so that only the registered owner can fire it, a technological solution to a sociological problem which avoids all those messy and difficult issues.

Yes, my friends, the solution to any and every conceivable social ill is a chip! And there's a chip for everything. These chips save us from having to actually address the difficult and messy issues at the root of sociological problems. Thank god for microchips!

But wait, if microchip technology is the solution to all problems, then mustn't microchips be god? Of course! Here we are, then, one nation under the supervision of microchips.

In the case in question, the problem is gang violence. Do we try and address the root causes of gang violence? Do we try to take away the poor baby's guns? No. Instead, let's equip, by law, every bullet with an ID chip, a technological solution to a sociological problem which avoids all those messy and difficult issues.


Of course, what will stop the criminals from taking a trip to one of California's adjacent states and buying non-chipped bullets?

Wait, California has adjacent states? I thought we were an island?

Details, details.

They are, of course, also assuming that every store clerk is Dudly DoRight and will make all the required log entries exactly right... even when there's an extra twenty in it for him.

And, finally, they're assuming that the gang boys won't just take a few rounds of existing stock and use 'em to rob a store without signing the bullet log.
 
Handgun ammunition manufacturers and retailers need to get together and stop selling to any government official, cop, politician, and politician's body guard in California. Watch how fast this law, if passed, gets repealed.

Edited to add: some of the posters on the linked site have this exact idea. Hope it happens if this law passes.
 
If criminals can get their hands on stolen guns easily, how hard will it be for them to get unauthorized bullets?

I don't really have much to disagree with about the principle of the law, but there's simply no practicality to it. Not to mention the additional money involved.
 
Gollnick: My thoughts exactly. Crimes are committed by criminals, by definition. Criminals break laws. More laws won't do a damn thing. :mad:

What criminal is going to think twice about going out of state for some non-serialized ammunition? If they are going to be committing violent crimes, what makes anyone think that they'll use legal bullets to do it?

How about prosecuting the criminals who break the law to begin with, rather than penalizing the good citizens by taking away their right to keep and bear arms?

One last thing; also in the California senate currently is a bill requiring all newly manufactured handguns to microstamp identifying information on the shell casing when fired. AB 352. Diabolical. If we cant' get the guns banned outright, let's make them prohibitively expensive to manufacture and shoot.
 
Sounds similar to the "ballistic fingerprinting" (forcing manufacturers to provide a fired cartridge for each gun sold) law we have in Maryland.

"Only two states—New York and Maryland—currently have ballistic fingerprint databases...not a single violent crime has been solved in either New York or Maryland as a result of ballistic fingerprinting to date." from the Columbia Political Review.

Millions of taxpayer dollars down the drain and not ONE single gun crime has been solved!

Take this as truth - most lawmakers are not interested in protecting our safety, but only in the APPEARANCE of protecting our safety. Most gun laws are a prime example of government intrusion into our second amendment freedoms which do nothing to deter firearm crimes.

And this: "The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the largest police organization in the U.S., also dismissed the creation of a ballistic imaging database: "Ballistic imaging is a massive waste of precious law enforcement resources. The national database is unreliable and results aren’t objective."
 
Seems uneforcable, impractical, and perhaps expensive. (Anyone heard about costs?) How hard would it be to drive a van to Nevada and buy enough ammo for eve4ryone in town?

I'm under the impression that most firearms crimes are done with stolen guns. Now this law has instantly created a huge market for stolen ammunition. Additionally, if the firearm isn't discharged during a crime, if the bullet is damaged, and if the bullet can be found at all, it's completely useless. Most armed robberies are fairly simple - show someone your gun and ask for money. This law is useless in that instance also.

Are there provisions for handloaders? I doubt many inner-city gang members are loading their own...

The 'hippy' article seemed well-balanced, informational, and presenting the viewpoint of both sides, including this, "If more companies would make this stand and simply say 'if you're going to make it hard for the public to own firearms then we aren't going to assist you in arming yourself against them' maybe the balance would shift," copied from an online forum.

-Bob
 
LOL what a bunch of idiots our "lawmakers" are !!!!
For instance I own several firearms , not being the average joe I also have thousands of rounds of ammo for some of them that use more ammo than others , if you know what I mean.
So what do these genuis numbnut idiots plan to do about the millions upon millions of rounds allready privately owned ?? Nothing !! They cant !! They are powerless. I'm halfway between screaming and laughing uproariously right now :D My God how stupid these people are. So in effect what this does is drive up the price of ammo without the serial numbers on the black market.
As my Uncle used to say "REAL GOOD NUMBNUTS!"
 
digdeep said:
Sounds similar to the "ballistic fingerprinting" (forcing manufacturers to provide a fired cartridge for each gun sold) law we have in Maryland.

"Only two states—New York and Maryland—currently have ballistic fingerprint databases...not a single violent crime has been solved in either New York or Maryland as a result of ballistic fingerprinting to date." from the Columbia Political Review.

Millions of taxpayer dollars down the drain and not ONE single gun crime has been solved!
Click to expand...


I've never understood the ballistic fingerprint thing.

As I understand it, the gun manufacturer takes the brand new gun and fires it a couple of times using whatever type of ammo he chooses, and then sends those artifacts to a lab that "fingerprints" them. That's stored on a computer.

Years later, a cop and recover a shell casing at a crime scene and that casing can be scanned and compared against this database looking for a match.

Sounds good.

But...

Several years ago, I saw a story in the news about balistic fingerprinting. Authorities wanted to fire the rifle allegedly used to shoot JFK. This way, they could compare the bullet with the bullet recovered from the President's body which had been carefully preserved.

This test had been done at the time and the two were deemed a match. But, today's technology is much more sophisticated. So, they wanted to repeat the test with today's technology.

The problem was that the artifacts from the firing of the gun at the time had been improperly stored and had decayed and become unusuable. So, they wanted to get a fresh sample from the gun.

Fortunately, they'd been able to locate some identical ammo from the same time and still in good shape. I'm told that the FBI keeps a "library."

The concern was, according to the article I read, that every time a gun is fired, it's balistic fingerprint changes slightly. The currators of the rifle were desparately concerned that if they fired the gun now, even just one or two rounds, it would invalidate possible future testing with even more sophisiticated technology.

In the end, they did fire the rifle a couple of rounds and got an exact match to today's standards.


The point here is that if firing a gun even just a few times can change its "balistic fingerprint" then what about firing it a few thousand times?

Mechanical devices undergo ware following what's called a "bathtub curve." Basically, the rate of wear is quite high initially for a short period when the mechanism is brand new as the parts sort of "break in." Then, there's a long period of very little wear. Finally, there's a short period of high wear rate again as the mechanism wears out. This is why automobile manufacturers often recommend an oil change after the first thousand miles. They know there'll be a lot of metal fragments in the oil during the first thousand miles. After that, you can settle into every three thousand.

So, a grand new gun is test fired and "fingerprinted." The "fingerprints" are recorded perhaps from the first two or three rounds that gun ever fires. I get the gun, take it to a range and put a few hundred rounds on it. Won't the "fingerprint" now be different? I would think so, so different that an expert could no longer say with any certainty that there's a match to the "fingerprint" on record?

Furthermore, the test on the JFK rifle was possible only because they had some examples of the exact same ammo from the same era available.

What if I use a different brand of ammo than what the testing was done with?

It seems to me like it's no wonder they've yet to get a match.
 
Bob W said:
Are there provisions for handloaders? I doubt many inner-city gang members are loading their own...
Click to expand...

Maybe not right now. But it's not hard to do nor overly expensive to get set up.

Here's the real briliance to this. So we force the gang bangers to take up hand loading. Now they have pounds of gun powder in jugs just laying around the house waiting to be used. How long do you think it will be before the term gang banger takes on a whole new meaning?
 
Gollnick said:
Here's the real briliance to this. So we force the gang bangers to take up hand loading. Now they have pounds of gun powder in jugs just laying around the house waiting to be used. How long do you think it will be before the term gang banger takes on a whole new meaning?
Click to expand...
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
 
A coworker of mine thinks this is just an attempt by liberal California lawmakers to force ammunition manufacturers to discontinue ammo sales to California, deeming it to be too expensive. Sounds somewhat plausible to me.
 
Gollnick said:
The concern was, according to the article I read, that every time a gun is fired, it's balistic fingerprint changes slightly. The currators of the rifle were desparately concerned that if they fired the gun now, even just one or two rounds, it would invalidate possible future testing with even more sophisiticated technology.

[....]

The point here is that if firing a gun even just a few times can change its "balistic fingerprint" then what about firing it a few thousand times?
Click to expand...

I think it could change quite a bit and I've seen this issue discussed elsewhere.

Rifling most definitely wears and changes from shooting the gun as well as scrubbing it out with a bore brush. If you've ever seen the bore of a well-fired gun like an old military rifle, the wear on the rifling can be considerable.

The real question of course is "will it change enough to throw off these tests"? I haven't seen a conclusive answer, but it definitely seems possible.
 
How many millions of rounds of "unsigned" ammunition are imported into the US every year? How long would it take before a bit of smuggling starts to take place?

"Psst....Hey, buddy, case of Czech 9mm?"

I envision a huge, expensive database that does absolutely nothing.
 
Czech??? How about Nevada, or Arizona, or Oregon?

The ammo manufactuers won't stop selling into California. No. They'll just be selling to California through other states.

Who is hurts is mom-and-pop gun shops in California. Their business will go to other states.

I just found out something the other day. The most profitable piece of retail real estate in America in terms of dollars sold per day per square foot of floor space is just up the road from me. It's the giant Costco store just this side of the Washington/Oregon border. Oregon has no sales tax. It's 7-point-something in Washington.
 
Notice that this bill is moving through the CA legislature, as opposed to the state legislature of someplace such as Idaho. Think about that, and why it is so.
 
Thirteenth Star said:
Notice that this bill is moving through the CA legislature, as opposed to the state legislature of someplace such as Idaho. Think about that, and why it is so.
Click to expand...


OK 13*, you've got my interest piqued. Please elaborate... :confused:
 
Lets just ban handguns all together, it really worked in the UK :rolleyes:

Now, when someone is shot to death, there is no mention of illegally held firearms, just that they were shot, what a farce.
 
i like what barrett did with the 50 cal. when they banned it in cali barrett took action. :p

http://www.barrettrifles.com/news/ca_outcome.htm
Barrett cannot legally sell any of its products to lawbreakers. Therefore, since California’s passing of AB 50, the state is not in compliance with the US Constitution’s 2nd and 14th Amendments, and we will not sell nor service any of our products to any Government agency of the State of California.
Click to expand...

i think all gun manifactures should ban togeather and stop selling weapons to california's police, national guard, and any government agency and or state who supplys california with guns, ammo, and parts. how long would they issue new officers rocks before they would crack?
 
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