Bill seeks to require guns to tag ammunition

Contra Costa Times ^ | 4/21/6 | Rebecca Rosen Lum

[SmithL]

Bob Pepping/Times

Terence Wong, Contra Costa County deputy sheriff criminalist, says shell casings from guns with microscopic stamping equipment care a unique "signature" from the firing pin used to fire them. A state bill would require all semi-automatic handguns to be so equipped.

[MeanWestTexan]

Any knowledgeable hitman uses a revolver anyway.

Generally a .22, in fact.

[MeanWestTexan]

Any knowledgeable hitman uses a revolver anyway.

Generally a .22, in fact.

[rellimpank]

--here we go again--

[eastforker]

This is so stupid. It would be so easy to erase the die on the end of the firing pin.

[VRing]

"The pin is nearly as hard as a diamond"

This kind of stuff is just laughable.

[coloradan]

How soon will it be that you can buy a firing pin on eBay that stamps "This gun ow3ed by Diane Feinstein" on every shell?

[G.Mason]

Amusing.

[WorkerbeeCitizen]

And when they can't do it, (Technically), the semi-auto pistol becomes an illegal gun - how convenient.

[eastforker]

I also like the idea of sprinkling spent casing from a firing range.

[GSlob]

What are they thinking with? There are aftermarket replacement firing pins. And nothing's easier than removing a firearm firing pin and polishing it.

[Redcloak]

"You can put an identifying number on every container of yogurt you sell, but not on a gun?"

That's because people, generally speaking, don't use the same yogurt container over and over again. They do, however, reload firearms after firing a few rounds through them. (They're not like throw-away cameras where you toss them when all of the pictures have been taken.) If people used yogurt containers like they do firearms, then the serial numbers would wear off in short order.

[rarestia]

I smell a mass exodus of gun manufacturers selling in The People's Republik of Kalifornia. This law is absolutely ridiculous, and it's another attempt to subvert the Constitution of the United States. Go to Hell you Kalifornia sycophants! Give us our freedom, lest we take away yours at the ballot box!

[Tarantulas]

A "bullet shell?" Jeeeez...

Multimillion-dollar initiative defeated by less than a penny's worth of sandpaper.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

It's SOP among criminals to file the serial number off any gun they intend to use in a crime.

It will take any criminal thirty secons with a file to disable this thing.

The only people affected will be law-abiding gunowners.

[pikachu]

I'm sure that they will not have much success and just insist on installing a LoJack on each shell.

[mvpel]

No "technically" about it. Another way to harass law-abiding gun owners.

Next thing you know, they'll require licensing and registration for these:

Woodworkers, beware!

[CrawDaddyCA]

"It has the potential to solve some significant crimes in some pretty large numbers," Koretz said in a telephone interview.

Oh, please! This is nothing but an attempt at back door gun banning. As I see it, the motive is to make gun makers stop doing business in California.

Then, after the guns are banned, they call all sit together around the campfire singing 'kumbaya' and live in perfect peace with the earth.

[xenophiles]

The technology expands on the incidental markings that already appear on cartridge casings, Lizotte said. "Instead of relying on randomly created marks, we're placing an identifier specific to that firearm."

Um... why? Prosecutors have long asserted that those "randomly created marks" are sufficiently distinct and identifiable to send people to jail, so what's the point of this new technology?

Could it be that the only real purpose is to make all existing guns illegal?

[Tennessee_Bob]

You can have my Swiss files when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers!