Circumventing "Prickly Second Amendment Concerns"

Unable to effectively remove our constitutional right to own guns in America, gun grabbers have come up with a back door scheme to disarm law-abiding citizens that is currently being proposed in several states, serial coding ammunition.

As the Supreme Court contemplates the constitutionality of Washington D.C.’s gun ban, a group identifying themselves as Ammunition Accountability is fostering a movement advocating laser etching an alphanumeric serial number on the base and inside of every single round of ammunition manufactured in America.

Advocates boast of

“Law enforcement testing has already shown a 99% success rate in identifying the ammunition code after bullet recovery,” while readily admitting, “This system will not necessarily prove who pulled the trigger.”

Also stated,

“Each ammunition producer would be required to purchase at least one, if not more, laser engraving machines and ammunition material handlers to produce ACS coded ammunition,” at an estimated $300,000 to $500,000. Additionally, “A licensing fee for each single bullet sold would also be required.”

Legislation is currently pending in Alabama, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington on this system.

States are seeking to redefine the gun control battle more as a “law enforcement” over an issue of broad based gun ownership, “to sidestep prickly Second Amendment concerns.”

Supporters naively tell us,

“when a potential criminal purchases a box of 9mm cartridges, the box of ammunition and the bullets’ coding numbers would be connected to the purchaser in a statewide database. When a bullet is found at a crime scene, the code on the bullet can be read with a simple magnifying glass and then be run through a statewide database to determine who purchased the ammunition and where, providing a valuable investigative lead.”

Opponents inform us it would mean,

“Forfeiture of Currently-Owned Ammunition, A Separate Registration for Every Box of New Ammunition, Outrageously Expensive Ammunition Costs for Police & Private Citizens Alike and A Waste of Taxpayer Money, Better Spent on Traditional Police Programs.”

It goes without saying that criminals could easily beat the system by stealing or smuggling in their ammunition, defeating the stated purpose of the legislation or by using another favorite tool of theirs, a shotgun, whose ammunition contains pellets much too small to be engraved as well as their plastic shell would be near impossible to engrave.

If enacted, gun-owning citizens would be required to separately register every box of "encoded ammunition," with the information supplied to the police. Many states currently do not require registration of guns. Each box of ammunition would have a unique serial number, thus a separate registration.

Here again, most criminals don’t purchase ammunition legally, they just steal it or smuggle it in. The cost of purchasing ammo for your gun will skyrocket, as it will for the Police and Military as well.

Microstamping is another back door gun control approach that is being considered in some states and was signed into law in California by Governor Schwarzenegger last October, in spite of the technology veiled in controversy.

With microstamping, the weapons firing pin is laser engraved to leave a distinct mark on the ejected brass casing. Law Enforcement and Military Weaponry are currently exempted, under the new law, but gun manufacturers still assemble their products by hand after purchasing components like firing pins in large quantities. They do not have separate assembly lines for Police, Military, Sports Shooters, Private Gun Owners or even solely for California.

In time this would have to raise the cost of weapons for Police and Military considerably as well, being borne by an already over taxed citizenry.

Opponents foresee an increase in the cost of guns sold in California of an estimated $200.00 apiece, provided manufacturers will still import their product to California. The National Shooting Sports Foundation concluded,

“It can be easily defeated in mere seconds using common household tools or criminals could simply switch the engraved firing pin for readily available unmarked spare parts, thereby circumventing the technology.”

Not addressed is that revolvers do not eject casings that could be left behind or that, as before, criminals could easily smuggle unmarked weapons into the state to conduct their criminal activity.

The last ten years have seen many aspects of our Second Amendment Rights gradually restored across the nation. Gun grabbers had lobbied to restrict those rights in their never-ending quest to disarm the American Citizen.

When they propose these restrictive laws, they never take into account that criminals just do not follow or abide by the laws and they leave decent law-abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals.

Groups like the NRA, NSSF and Gun Owners of America have successfully blocked and lobbied for repeal of restrictive legislation that infringed upon our rights to own guns under the constitution. Gun grabbers have now devised a way to circumvent “prickly Second Amendment concerns” by attacking the ammunition, leaving us with empty guns, useless in self-defense.

It is up to those of us who are legal and law-abiding gun owners to pressure our legislatures at the state level to vote against this back door approach to disarming America, while leaving criminals laughing.

You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.