Ammo Ban in California

K

kelsey

New member
AMMO BAN BREWING . . . California's legislature is developing language for a proposed new law that would require serialized handgun ammunition, coded uniquely by the box. That means each container of ammo, whether containing 20, 50 or 100 rounds, would have to carry its own code number, which would also be engraved somehow inside the brass and on the bottom of the bullet for each cartridge. Purchases would be registered to the owner, and possession of unregistered ammo would be a crime for anyone but law enforcement. That amounts to a practical ban on ammunition by non-police consumers for several reasons. No company attempting to comply could absolutely guarantee all cartridges in the box registered to the ultimate customer were correctly marked with hidden codes. The simple inspection of intact cartridges could not reveal whether bullets were lawfully engraved, making every possession of ammunition suspect. It's estimated that attempts to comply would raise prices from pennies a round to dollars per cartridge for California customers, but police agencies would be able to buy anything "off the shelf" from the existing supply chain. Watch for specifics about the proposal, and technical explanations for why it cannot work, on the Web site of the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute, Inc. (SAAMI).
 
Kinda like that stupid law in Md (and now other states) that makes manufacturers shoot a round in your brand new gun and sending it to the state police so that if it used in a crime they can match the firing pin marks on the brass.

What will they do with the multibillions of brass that is just laying around waiting to be reloaded? I think that this is just another way for them to try and get .50 BMG caliber shooters that have their guns before the recent ban to get rid of them. If all ammo has to be stamped in order to be possesed and you cannot buy .50 caliber any more then they would make the .50's useless.
 
And this, my friends, is why I'm actively searching for work in Arizona. I must get out of California.
 
This is quite possibly the dumbest idea I've heard out of that home state government yet.

How exactly will you ensure that like serial numbers stay together? What exactly will such a serial number prove???? And why don't police need registered ammo too???

You'd think with the total failure of these "ballistic registry" schemes, that they'd give it up for a while. What a sham.
 
The bureaucrats who thought this up know d*mn good and well that the outcome will be either:

1.) Ammo makers will not be able to comply and therefore will not be able to sell ammo in CA which is tatamount to an ammo ban, or
2.) Ammo makers will be able to comply and the price of ammo will go up by a factor of 3X or 4X to pay for the technology, or
3.) Compliance will bring the flow of ammo down to a trickle, as it will be enormously time consuming to comply, and
4.) This will slow the manufacturing of ammo and raise the prices NATIONWIDE, not just in CA, and
5.) Shooters and reloaders will be forced to destroy tens of millions of rounds of ammo that they have stocked up on or face felony crime charges.

The bureaucrats that thought up this plot are NOT stupid - they know exactly what they are doing!!

If this plot becomes law, it may well spell the beginning of the end of ammo availibility to We The People - and therefore the beginning of the end of our ability "to Keep and Bear Arms."

Guns without ammo are nothing more than clubs.
 
Hey now there's a republican governor there too. It is the missguided moderates that are following the loudmouths. Also remember that Brady was Reagan's man. I remember the assault weapons ban was passed by a congress that was more than half republican. Clean the moderate conservativ'es house first before you go blaming liberals for all of the ills. Moderate republicans have to be educated by y'all non-liberals on this and I will do my part in educating fellow democrats. I WILL vote for a republican, that I dissagree on almost every issue with, just because he will defend my gun rights. Letting my democratic politicians know this may help on my end and now y'all have to let Shwartseneger know that his days are numbered if he listens to the loud anti gun minority and passes this bill.


edit: oops sorry I just saw that you said "bureaucrats" and not "democrats". :o
 
And this, my friends, is why I'm actively searching for work in Arizona. I must get out of California.
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Get the hell out of there, dasmi. As an ex-San Diegan (18 years in the South Bay area), I can assure you that you will be much happier in Arizona or Texas.
 
That's OK, All the ammo I have ever fired has a serial number on it. I'm only up to serial number. 10,301,051,460,877,537,453,973,547,267,843,729,354,196,235,826,273,889,243,817,583,458,184,211,587. Bit of a pain to engrave that number though.
 
:) This is why God made wheel weights....ho ho. If they ever ban bullets in the US, I would be down to my last 20,000 rounds...............
 
Didn't see that coming. :rolleyes:

And some of my friends wonder why I bother to cast & reload.

www.swage.com sells swaging presses to make your own jacketed bullets. Kits are available to form your own jackets from flat stock copper strips, or from plumber type copper pipe, scrounged or new.

Check em out.
 
Scary!

Know what's scary? Just yesterday, my wife was offered a big promotion and raise. Only thing is, it would involve reloacing to the company's Kommiefonia office in Santa Barbara. :eek: :barf: :eek:

No Way! No How! I don't care if there is a big raise involved, we still lose in the end, what with the high tax rate and the outlandish cost of living. And then, there's the Socialists, Greenies and the Gun Grabbers. NO NO NO NO!!!

She did the math -- and turned 'em down! :D

Phooey on em. They'll have to drag me there, kicking and screaming!
 
and this also my friends is why im sitting on over 10,000 rounds of various caliber. also have picked up over 20 pieces since oct. last year.
 
Simple answer

Companies that produce guns and ammo should stop all sales to CA,
No guns no ammo to any one, including poliece and any one guarding state officals.
Lets face it Calaforina is so safe no one needs any guns.
 
On the bright side there would be an open market for ammuniton trafficking... I don't think any of us would be averse to that. :mad:
 
If I interpreted the law correctly, ANY pre-existing and untracable, NON-serial IDd ammunition is illegal to possess, brass and manufacturing components would be illegal and if you were caught trading or buying or selling completed rounds, cases, components or other tools to modify ammunition, you are a criminal. I feel it impacts on interstate commerce. I imagine it would probably pass the state legislature though. The SCOTUS will deem it unconstitutional. California might as well ban red Ford Mustangs.
 
Here's a more complete article: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20041006-9999-1n6gunstamp.html

SACRAMENTO – For years, manufacturers have branded computer chips and airline parts with microscopic codes that identify each piece and protect against counterfeiting and theft.

The figures, etched with a laser and as small as the width of two human hairs, are nearly invisible to the naked eye but easily read with an electronic magnifying glass.

After a promising internal study, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has concluded the same high-tech tracking system could be a powerful new weapon against crime, particularly gun violence.

Lockyer wants to brand all handgun ammunition sold in the state. The ammunition and information about people who buy it would be electronically recorded with the same system now used for gun sales and stored in a database available to law enforcement.

Lockyer and his top firearms expert have briefed law enforcement leaders on the system and the Democratic attorney general is expected to introduce it at an anti-crime summit this week in Los Angeles.

The move figures to touch off the next big fight over gun-control in California, which already has some of the most stringent gun laws in the nation.

"Most of the guns used in crime – 80 percent – are handguns," said Randy Rossi, director of the firearms division at the state Department of Justice. "We want to see how well this works and give it a sunset. If it doesn't work, abandon it. But there is no reason in the world to believe it won't work."

The plan would require putting serial numbers on all handgun ammunition possessed in public, sold or imported into the state. To accommodate law-abiding sport shooters and those who reload their own cartridges, anyone on their way to or from a shooting range or hunting trip would be exempt. It's unclear how this provision would work, with supporters acknowledging that details on many aspects of the system need to be worked out.

The microstamping system under study was developed by a Washington state company, Ravensforge. The company engraves shell casings and bullets with a matching serial number. All of the cartridges in a box packaged for retail sale would have the same serial number, which could be scanned and linked to a purchaser's driver license number, Rossi said.

The state's more than 1,600 licensed firearms dealers already have the electronic equipment to record the information – scanning the code on the ammunition box and electronically swiping the driver license – in the same way they collect required personal information for gun transactions.

Rossi initially was skeptical that a bullet's number would be legible after it was fired.

A test of 200 rounds fired from close range into walls, car doors, bulletproof vests, rubber matting and a gel designed to simulate a human target convinced him the technology is sound.

Of 181 slugs recovered – including soft lead bullets that largely flattened out – the tiny code could be read on 180 of them with a simple electronic magnifying scope.

"We tried to prove this doesn't work," he said. "To have it work virtually every time, I was very surprised."

Lockyer seized on the system as an alternative to ballistics fingerprinting, which relies on unique, microscopic imperfections in shell casings and slugs. The attorney general angered gun-control advocates last year when his office concluded that ballistics imaging required a massive database and would prove ineffective unless launched as part of national system.

By tracking ammunition, which Rossi said has a relatively short shelf life, the state could develop a much broader database than an alternative that applies only to new handguns.

The attorney general's aides concede the microstamping proposal faces daunting political and financial obstacles. Manufacturers, gun-control and gun-rights activists – none of whom were involved in the initial study – are raising questions.

Gary Mehalik of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for manufacturers of ammunition and firearms, said the caliber of guns used in any test could have been a critical factor in the results.

The state tested 9 millimeter, .38, .40 and .45 caliber handguns. No .22 caliber weapons were used and microstamping has not yet been applied to .22 caliber ammunition, the most common used by sport shooters.

Rossi and Paul Curry, a lobbyist for Ravensforge, said the serial numbers could be applied for a penny or less per cartridge. But Mehalik predicted it would be expensive to add a manufacturing process that matches casings and bullets, and then packages them in a box with the same code number.

"We'd have to analyze the costs, but I can tell you that it would create a logistical nightmare inside the current production systems," Mehalik said.

A leading gun-rights group dismissed the proposal as an ill-conceived, high-tech version of gun registration.

"The technology is certainly there, but all of the technology can be defeated by anyone who wants to defeat it," said Sam Paredes of the 30,000-member Gun Owners of California.

Many gun owners make their own ammunition and reuse lead and shell casings, Paredes said.

"Gang members in South Central or East Los Angeles, they're going to know this ammunition is tainted," Paredes said. "So they're going to pay somebody a little bit of money to load some ammunition for them and they're clean."

But they won't be legal if caught with unmarked ammo in public, Rossi said.

"We could get some gang bangers who all of a sudden take an interest and study reloading . . . but I hardly think so," Rossi said. "These are the same people that won't even bother to put a glove on when they're committing a crime or put some mud on their license plate.

"This won't solve every crime, but it will solve a lot of crimes."
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Sir William
The SCOTUS will deem it unconstitutional
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... Or Ruth Bader Ginsberg might yawn, suddenly find something very interesting about the inside of one of her desk drawers - and simply decline to hear the case.
 
Another stupid law that the criminals will ignore and find a way to avoid. It will make legal gun owners scarce and the law will leave the criminals with all of the guns and ammunition. Don't they realise that California can't even keep Chinese immigrants from being smuggled in by the boatload? Much less, a boatload of Chinese surplus ammunition, without serial numbers, that the Chinese mafia will smuggle into California.
 
I agree, it seems like the government just wants bad guys to be armed and for us good guys to get shot by bad guys. I really don't like this big brother stuff, and I'm only 21, I'll be dealing with this kind of paranoid gun grabbing crap my whole life.
 
First of all, that law in CA won't work, nor will it be enforcable. Secondly, it will spawn the sales of reloading kits and dies that the stupid liberals in downtown SacTown have no clue about. Finally, there's enough republican support to stop it. I think Arnold said that he would veto this law, stating that it wouldn't have any affect on crime. I really would wish that Arnold would get some gonads and use his executive powers to end some of these stupid laws. But, as everyone knows, he's a RINO (Republican in name only...Fairweather conservative...). Because of this, I will never become a Republican in CA until CA Repbulicans stand up and vote these socialists out... :barf:
 
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