Serial Numbers On Ammo

[Murray]

Hey Guys http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/ohmy.gif

Have you seen this?????????

On New Zealand web site.

 

California lawmakers voted June 2nd to require manufacturers to ensure that

all bullets and

cartridges are branded with distinctive serial numbers.

 

Read About It: Los Angeles Times

 

POSTED: 6/3/2005

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Lockyer, Dunn and Perata Misrepresent Their Bullet Registration Scheme

 

On April 26, 2005, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, Sen. Joe Dunn

and Senate President

pro tem Don Perata held a press conference announcing the introduction of SB

357, a bill to

mandate that all handgun ammunition carry a unique serial number engraved on

the casing of each

cartridge and on the bottom of every bullet. During this conference, Lockyer

made a number of

claims in support of the bill that are not supported by the facts. The

Sporting Arms and

Ammunition Manufacturers Institute, Inc. responded to those claims, and

provided important insight

into the real impact of this ill-conceived legislation.

 

* Lockyer, Dunn and Perata claimed SB357 would cost manufacturers only

one-half of a cent to

laser engrave a serial number on the base of a bullet and side of a

cartridge.

 

According to SAAMI, the actual cost to serialize ammunition--with a number

engraved on the bottom

of each bullet and on the side of each casing--would be staggering,

requiring the creation of

entirely new factories and purchase of new production equipment. This alone

would cost tens of

millions of dollars. Additionally, the time required to laser engrave each

round, even if only a

fraction of a second for each of the millions of rounds produced, would

seriously slow down

production. SAAMI estimates it would take three weeks to produce what is now

completed in one DAY.

This sort of slowdown would cripple the industry. It would also require that

ammunition, which is

now made in production lots of millions, be made in lots of 20, 50 or 100

rounds, eliminating the

benefits of mass production that enable ammunition manufacturers to operate

successfully.

 

SAAMI analysis projects that a round that now costs pennies would cost

several dollars each! A far

cry from the half-cent claim made by Lockyer and his allies.

 

* Lockyer, Dunn and Perata said that serializing each bullet is the same

as printing lot

numbers on the packaging of other products.

 

These two procedures are not comparable. Ammunition manufactures already

place lot numbers on

ammunition packaging, just as makers of other products do. They do not,

however, place serial

numbers on each item in the package. Imagine the cost to consumers if every

aspirin, antacid or

prescription drug capsule had to carry a serial number. The costs would make

health care

excessively expensive for even well off Americans.

 

* Lockyer, Dunn and Perata claimed the industry has test-fired

serialized bullets to ensure

the technology works.

 

No major firearms manufacturer, or SAAMI--the nation`s leading authority,

which sets standards

followed by every ammunition maker--participated in any testing of

serialized ammunition. SAAMI

has serious questions regarding the practicality of reading the number from

a laser engraving on a

bullet after it has been subjected to the pressures and deformation involved

in firing a handgun.

In any case, General Lockyer was misleading in suggesting the industry has

participated in testing

this process.

 

* Lockyer, Dunn and Perata asserted that the bill would not impact rifle

ammunition.

 

This claim shows the lack of general knowledge the proponents of this bill

have about firearms. SB

357 specifies "handgun ammunition" without providing a definition, and that

opens the ban up to

any round that can be fired from a handgun. This would include all .22

caliber rimfire rounds, the

most common target shooting round, and many traditional rifle rounds that

can and are shot from

handguns that are designed for hunting. Additionally, there are many rifles

that are designed to

use common "handgun" ammunition, including .38, 9mm, .44 and .45.

 

* Lockyer, Dunn and Perata said SB 357 would not adversely impact law

enforcement.

 

Even with a law enforcement exemption, the cost of ammunition will increase

dramatically. This

will have an adverse impact on police department budgets and on the costs to

all city and county

bottom lines. Additionally, it is the civilian sales of ammunition that fund

research and

development of ammunition for law enforcement and the military.

 

Not only would the enormous costs of implementing a bullet registration

scheme divert critical

funding from proven crime fighting initiatives, the proposal could hardly be

an effective

crime-fighting tool. Consider that, among other things, criminals could:

 

* Use reloading equipment to produce unmarked ammunition.

* Disassemble rounds of marked ammunition, remove the markings, then

reassemble.

* Collect spent shell casings at target ranges and use them to throw

police off the trail.

* Steal marked ammunition from registered owners.

* Use handguns that don`t eject cartridge cases and leave evidence at

crime scenes.

* Buy unmarked ammunition out of state or on the black market.

 

Additionally, this bill would have a negative impact on our military forces

by making all

ammunition more expensive and less available due to significantly slower

production.

 

Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), as chairman of the Committee on Armed

Services in the U.S.

House of Representatives, has expressed his concerns about SB 357 in a

letter to Gov. Arnold

Schwarzenegger. The proposal would drive up the price of ammunition, he

said, and would lead to "a

reduction in cartridges available for target practice, which would leave our

armed forces and law

enforcement personnel vulnerable on the battlefield and on America`s

streets." Chairman Hunter

urged the Governor "to strongly oppose ammunition serialization on the

grounds that it would harm

our national and homeland security."

 

The most likely short-term impact of this legislation would be that

ammunition makers would simply

abandon the California market, rather than incur the exorbitant costs

associated with bullet and

cartridge serialization. The net effect would be to rob all Californians of

their constitutional

right to keep and bear arms--no doubt exactly the result anti-gun

politicians have in mind.

 

Finally, it must be noted that the sponsors of this legislation were given

the opportunity to

learn first hand about the industry their legislation threatens to destroy.

SAAMI invited members

of the California legislature as well as Attorney General Lockyer on a tour

of an ammunition

plant. Not surprisingly, Lockyer and the other bill sponsors failed to take

advantage of the

opportunity to learn first-hand how ammunition is made, and why this bill is

a bad idea. http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/mad.gif

 

For more information go to SAAMI and

http://www.saami.org/news/CA_ammoSer040505.htm

 

Happy days guys

Murray. http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/blink.gif

[hawksnest]

Someone once said "No man's life, liberty or property is safe when the legislature is in sesson". Amen to that.

[Bob]

This is kinda a fun read... and remember how it came about.

 

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

 

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

 

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

 

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

 

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

 

 

 

[21 smoker]

Bob,... Great reply but this document is considered to radical even in Kommiefornia....what a joke it is to live in such a screwed up state... http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/wink.gif