Posted on 06/29/2018 6:28:49 AM PDT by Simon Green
Gun manufacturers must do their best to comply with a California law requiring new models of semiautomatic handguns to imprint their bullets with identifying micro stamps so police can trace them, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday, rejecting the companies’ arguments that the law should be overturned because compliance is technologically impossible.
A gun-control advocate said the ruling preserves safety regulations that encourage industries to develop new technologies. A gun organization’s lawyer said the state is headed for a “slow-motion handgun ban.”
The gun law, passed in 2007, is supported by police organizations that say the stamps would help officers to determine the source of bullets found at crime scenes. It requires that new brands of semiautomatic pistols introduced for retail sale in California carry markings in two places that would imprint the gun’s model and serial number on each cartridge as it is fired.
The law didn’t take effect until 2013, when the state certified that there were no patent restrictions on the technology. But gun manufacturers have not sold any new models of semiautomatic handguns in California since then, and in 2014 a gun group sued to invalidate the law, saying its standards could never be met.
A state appellate court allowed the suit to proceed, relying on an 1872 California statute that declared, “The law never requires impossibilities.” On Thursday, however, the state’s high court dismissed the suit and said the law would remain on the books, even if it was difficult to enforce.
“Impossibility can occasionally excuse noncompliance with a statute,” Justice Goodwin Liu said, since a manufacturer charged with violating the law could argue that it had done everything possible to comply. “But impossibility does not authorize a court to go beyond interpreting a statute and simply invalidate it.”
(Excerpt) Read more at sfchronicle.com ...
How is this any different from requiring people to jump through hoops to practice free speech ?
Gun manufacturers should cease doing any business with any government entity in California.
30 seconds with a file...
I’m okay with the california law and hope that state confiscates guns there. Be less people shooting back in this upcoming civil war
It will be overruled at SCOTUS as it violates the 2nd A, how?
The technology is not 100% or near 100% feasible or reliable. Therefore, it stands to reason that all reliable and effective ammunition would be outlawed under this California decision.
Thus, the decision attempts to defeat the meaning and intent of the 2nd Amendment.
“Gun manufacturers should cease doing any business with any government entity in California.”
I think Barrett did after that muscle bound idiot Schwarzenegger banned the 50. The rest should follow suit.
Every single gun manufacturer should refuse to do any business with any entity of California Government right down to the smallest local police or sheriffs department.
Not one more gun or spare part.
Not one.
L
“The gun law, passed in 2007, is supported by police organizations...”
Supported by left wing democrat hack political chiefs.
On the technology side, this is an interesting concept--a microstamp on the firing pin? That puts the mark on the primer or the rim in the case of a 22LR. A very small mark.
Impact? Well, if someone doesn't police their brass, the police will and can then trace the gun. I'm not sure that I really have a problem with this for new guns once the technology exists. The challenge is that it can never apply to existing guns which makes the value limited as there are hundreds of millions of guns in circulation.
Gun Makers will simply stop selling new guns in California.
There are plenty of used guns to go around.
Besides, since barrels leave unique marks on the bullet, we’ve got traceability there. And I know some of my new guns come with fired bullet so I figure someone is likely collecting that bullet mark in a database somewhere.
Technology that can be easlity defeated with a small file.
Revolvers are Exempted.
I hope all firearms manufacturers will refuse to sell to California law enforcement. Squeeze them until they respect the Second Amendment.
I’m not sure that I really have a problem with this for new guns once the technology exists.
= = =
Manufacturing headache.
Very difficult to match a numbered firing pin from one batch run with its mating parts and frame from another batch.
Gun grabbers impact on legal gun owners, 100%, on criminals 0%.
If the technology is developed, how can it be proved that if a micro stamped bullet if used in the commission of a crime the gun was used by the owner? All this does is identify the gun owner, not the shooter. How many criminals buy their gun vs. stealing a legal one? But the larger question is how it impacts the Second Amendment and the role it plays in discouraging tyranny. Plus, the next logical step is gun registration by the government. We gun owners in California are in the middle of the proverbial slippery slope and I fear that there will not be a soft landing.
So they legislate the development of a non-existing, almost impossible technology for a largely non-existing problem?
The uniqueness of the marks from the barrel has been shown to be far more dubious than presented on TV, and in many court cases. It’s more like a shoe-print, in that it is still useful, but not unique.
Further, those marks change over time.
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