Senator Ramsey has sponsored SB 12, a bill that calls for all ammunition sold in the state to “contain a unique code.” This is identical to failed initiatives in New York, Maryland, and most recently, California.
This isn’t a crime-solving tool, it’s an attempt to strangle the shooting culture by raising the price and choking the supply of ammunition to civilians.
The Left claims that their intentions are to create a database whereby spent casings (if any) found at a crime scene can be tracked back to the owner of the firearm. I can tell you that’s a loopy idea right off the bat.
They work off the mental image (gleaned from years of CSI) of police recovering bullets from the scene of a drive-by shooting, then tracing them back to some sleazy underworld type. It doesn’t work that way. Even if they could match the bullets to a gun in the database (which is, in itself, unlikely), chances are, the person wielding it isn’t the original owner.
Hardened criminals don’t tend to buy and register guns through legitimate channels, a factor that invalidates the system before it starts.
Second, guns change. The firing pin will blunt and deform over time, and the character of the rifling will alter slightly as the barrel breaks in. Simply put, the “fingerprints” from a new gun can be drastically different from the fingerprints of a gun that’s had a few hundred rounds through it.
Other innocuous things like changing the firing pin (which may be a maintenance issue), switching the barrel or simply replacing springs, can also change the fingerprint.
The system, which should have stalled at the conceptual stage, fails to serve any useful purpose in solving crime. The State of Maryland found that,
(…) one year later, the Maryland State Police Forensic Sciences Division reversed course, citing “the failure of the MD-IBIS to provide any meaningful hits.” The report found that the program “has not met expectations and does not aid in the Mission statement of the Department of State Police.” It recommended that the data collection be suspended and that MD-IBIS staff be transferred to the DNA database unit. (…)
The report concluded that MD-IBIS,
“had not proven to be a time saving tool for the firearms examiner or an investigative enhancement to the criminal investigator (…) it has simply failed in the mission and vision concepts originally established for the program.”
Since its inception in 2001, the effort cost $2.6 million in taxpayer funds. In 2005, a bill was introduced to defund the initiative.
SAAMI reports that the New York version of the program has failed to turn up a single useful hit, and that as of September 2008, it is hopelessly backlogged.
So, why pursue such a wasteful and utterly useless initiative? Simple.
You get gun control without having to use the word “gun.” You get the additional Think Of The Children bonus of claiming that it’s going to solve crime.
The actual effect is to raise the price of ammunition to the point that normal folks can’t afford it. I’ve got news: ammunition prices rose as much as 60% last year at retail, and if it gets much worse, people will give up the hobby.
When something gets too expensive, people find other pursuits. Higher ammo prices, coupled with >$4.00/gallon gasoline, pretty much put the brakes on deer season in Georgia this year.
Higher ammunition prices mean people won’t practice, won’t train, and ultimately won’t shoot. Sooner or later, they’ll decide it’s not practical owning guns, and bingo! You’ve got gun control, without all the icky political mess.
But it doesn’t end there. The bill also amends Code 16 to call for a registration scheme for ammunition:
16-11-192
(c) All vendors of handgun ammunition in this state shall register with the department in a manner prescribed by the department by rule or regulation and shall record for each sale or transfer of handgun ammunition the following information which shall be maintained on the business premises of the vendor for a period of three years from the date of the sale or transfer:
(1) The date of the sale or transfer;
(2) The name of the person to whom the handgun ammunition was sold or transferred;
(3) The driver’s license number or other government issued identification card number of the person to whom the handgun ammunition was sold or transferred;
(4) The date of birth of the person to whom the handgun ammunition was sold or transferred;
(5) The unique coded identifiers of all handgun ammunition and bullets transferred; and
(6) All such other information that the department may by rule or regulation require.
And how will this be funded?
16-11-195
(a) On and after January 1, 2010, there shall be established a fee imposed on each person who purchases handgun ammunition in this state of $0.005 per assembled round of handgun ammunition or bullet for handgun ammunition.
Please contact your Senator and Representatives and ask that they oppose this bill.