MooseMan3000

Alright... a couple of things.

1) This is not a law. It's not even in the legislature yet. It's the Attorney General, giving a proposal for something that might be considered to be voted on at some point in the future. It's not "California." It's one guy.

2) The article is a load of shit.

Since you obviously test rendomly anyway, you can clearly put one bullet back into the box from which you removed it. Adding a custom serial number would not be hard.

It's not some guy writing each serial number by hand with a laser pointer. It's a robot. It's not like they slip and fuck up where the laser is pointing.

...

Do I even need to explain this one? Well, since he said it, and nobody's mentioned it, I guess so.

BAR CODES. ELECTRONIC SCANNERS. They've existed for quite a while now. Fed-Ex and UPS use them to track individual packages. Supermarkets use them to track products. What the fuck is this guy thinking? "There is simply no other way." Did anyone else notice this, or am I the only one who read the entire article?

Some of us call those "hundreds." Am I to trust this guy's math? (Or grammar?) He gives no actual figures, no evidence for his sweeping claims that the price of the ammunition would skyrocket. But, of course, he doesn't need evidence, because California is bad.

Has there ever been such a study? Since no states require serialization of ammunition yet, why would there be a study?

1) "To date." Bills get changed before they become laws. Read up on your legislative process.
2) Home reloaders generally keep their spent casings to (wait for it) reload them. They're still going to be registered to that person.
3) As hrdwareguy mentioned, most criminals won't bother reloading their own casings.

See points 2 and 3 above. And add this one: most violent crimes are not premeditated. Very, very few people would stop to think to remove the marking before shooting someone with the bullet. Plus, as hrdwareguy also mentioned, where the serial number is will be a weak spot on the casing. If you scratch out the brass even further, who's to say the round will even fire correctly?

Yeah, but the bullet's still there. Oops, you forget that both parts have a serial?

See point above about bullets. Or, this practice could be regulated.

Good point. Let's remove all regulations on everything, because criminals don't care anyway. Fuck, why do we have laws to begin with?

You wouldn't be. Ex Post Facto. You can't be charged for a crime that wasn't illegal when you did it.

Wow. I'm not even sure what to say to that. I'm one of the most cynical people I know (in case you hadn't noticed), but I have a really hard time swallowing that one.

That is pretty funny.



Now that I'm done berating everyone... I don't necessarily agree with the proposal. Buit I absolutely don't agree with the article - nearly everything in it is circumstantial or arbitrary. His points have no evidence, and most of them are short sighted. I understand the article is by SAAMI, the people who should know the most about the subject. I won't, however, be convinced until I actually see the figures. Until I see the "studies." Don't forget that SAAMI has an economic stake in this, too.

If anyone thinks this post is meant to be a flame, it's not. I just can't stand it when something like this is written and people swallow it blindly - especially people whose opinions I generally respect. I'm not saying it's WRONG. Just that it's written and argued very poorly.


Now, to my actual opinion:

I think this proposal needs a lot of work, but I also think that if implemented correctly it could be very effective, for many reasons. There are studies showing who commits crimes, and the circumstances under which they're committed. Most violent crimes are committed by people who legally own the firearms, or by people who have stolen them from people who do. If it's the former, tracking the criminal becomes incredibly easy. If the latter, it clearly doesn't help as much, but it's another clue that could be used. Furthermore, if unmarked casings and bullets are used, that in itself can be used to help determine the owner of the gun.

What the article seems to me to be is an argument against change. This happens every time any sort of regulation is proposed. One could argue that a mandatory waiting period and background check for anyone who wants to buy a firearm are bad ideas, but one could just as well argue that the moon is made of cheese (which, by the way, it's not). Some regulations are good. Some are bad. Some we're not so sure on. But every time one is proposed, people cry out against them. The article is argued mostly from an economic standpoint (half-assed "Law Enforcement Benefits" section aside), and basically what it's saying is "we don't want to spend the money to implement a new system, so we're going to make up reasons that it wouldn't help anyway."

I could argue against the article for hours, because so many of the points are just inane, but I'm tired of it. It literally hurts my brain to read some of it, so I'm going to go take some ibuprofen and go to bed.

One last disclaimer: Feel free to argue with me, but I honestly don't care. You may think I'm a jackass, but that's alright with me. Conservatives have been hating me my entire life - I'm used to it. All I ask is that you think about what you say before you respond to me. That's it.