State-of-the-art bullet triggers debate

[superconnected]

Source: KOMO Staff & Seattle Weekly

SEATTLE -- A local man has come up with a state-of-the-art bullet, and it has triggered a controversial debate.

The bullet has your name on it, in a way. Invented by Russ Ford, the small piece of lead has a laser-imprinted bar code on it that Ford hopes will help police connect bullets to criminals.

But the bullet has been controversial since its inception. Some agree that the bullet would help track down criminals while others claim it's just another form of gun control.

"Oh, yes. Anytime that you talk about firearms, the firearms industry or the rights to carry firearms, it's extremely polarizing," said Wade Gaughran of Wade's Eastside Guns in Bellevue.



Read more: http://www.komotv.com/news/local/16247557.html

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I'm all for this but I doubt the perps are going to use these bullets.

[khaos]

1. yikes; what if you lost a box of rounds w/ your name all over them..

if this ever happens I predict a new black market for ammo

[razors edge]

2. When I purchase ammo

bulk at a gun show I pay cash and thats the end of the transaction, no ID required. Laws on ammo sales will have to enacted and punishments set. The person selling or giving ammo to a friend will have to do just as much time as someone selling or giving to a violent criminal. The prison industrial complex will love this idea.

Reloading will be outlawed, and several manufactures of reloading equipment as well as owners of their equipment will be more than a little pissed.

How many gigabytes of data storage will be crammed full of bullet date on spent projectiles embedded at the firing range? Who makes money from this arrangement? Who will be stupid enough to use these devises for nefarious purposes?

I could probably earn a living selling hand loads to people who just wouldn't want to participate in this latest big brother intrusion.

[Lex1775]

3. Depending on what you shoot...

the bullet could be mangled behind the ability to read the bar code.

[DonP]

4. I thought that was for the brass casing?

The jacketed bullet usually gets flattened when it hits the backsop or anything soft, even a body. It's hard to get even basic ballistics information off some bullets when they can even find them.

They have been talking about either "microstamping", having the firing pin put a distinctive set of markings on the primer of every cartridge fired, for years. The other item they have tried to pass off is a way to mark the brass casing with a specific serial number for the gun on the side of the casing when it expands inthe chamber.

Both are fraught with problems since taking a nail file to a firing pin changes the microstamping, not to mention that all semi autos throw the empty casings all over the place at a shooting range. e.g. pick up a few random casings and toss them on the ground at the next drive by. And a revolver doesn't drop the casing at all, so you have a "Revolver Loophole" to start with.

The real thinking behind it is to make ammunition really expensive by a factor of at least 20+ times. Then fewer people can buy it, especially those lower income folks. There's also the question of who owns the company making all this new equipment that they want to legislate on all ammo manufacturers and who are they donating to politically.

Maryland (IIRC) has had a ballistics "fingerprinting" program going for several years and after spending $ millions on it the state police finally concluded that it wasn't practical and hadn't been used to solve a single case so they dumped it.

[RamboLiberal]

5. Actually California has a new law

Except the gun stamps the casing as I understand it.

"Last year, California passed a bill to take advantage of this new microstamping technology. Governor Schwarzenegger signed that legislation into law. I want to commend Senator Kennedy and Congressman Becerra for introducing these bills to put this technology to work nationwide," Helmke said.

California's microstamping law, which is supposed to take effect in 2010, would require all semiautomatic pistols to have "microstamped identifiers" -- tiny internal markings that transfer themselves onto bullet cartridges fired from a gun.

In theory, microstamped cartridges found at crime scenes might help police identify the make, model and serial number of the gun used in the crime -- and perhaps trace the criminal who used it as well.

At least one gun manufacturer, STI International, stopped selling firearms in California as soon as Gov. Schwarzenegger signed the state's microstamping bill into law.

(Ted Kennedy wants to take this federal) A gun control group is hailing Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) for introducing legislation that would require gun microstamping in all fifty states.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200802/NAT20080213a.html

So what's to prevent the smart criminal from deciding to use a revolver so no casings left at crime scene? Or going to a range and pocketing a bunch of casings to scatter at the scene? Casings can also be reused in reloading - how many stamps will be on hand reloads?

And on this bullet stamping - so now the sport shooter has to pay even more for ammo.

[Mojorabbit]

6. I can't see this working

my husband makes his own ammo

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

8. Does he sign his work?

:silly:

[JBoy]

7. I'm all for better gun control

but this is a dumb, unworkable idea.

[Ian David]

9. In fire arms training class, they taught me, that when you fire a bullet, you own it.

I have absolutely ZERO problem with this.

You fire a bullet, you own it.

And by the way, my gun has killed one less person than Laura Bush's car. RIP, Michael Dutton Douglas.

[tanstaafl]

10. Bet you big money ...

I bet you big money that the people who get all bent out of shape about this type of stuff and the laws associated are also the same people who voted for Bush twice and probably also said about the wire tapping "If you don't have anything to hide, then why are you worried? They can read all my email and listen in on my phone calls if it helps catch us some terrorists!"

[razors edge]

13. Put me down for $50.

And get bent yourself.

[Pavulon]

11. If it is cheaper than the white box

he has my business. Else no sale.

[Zhade]

12. Say HELLOOOOO to easy-as-pie framing at the hands of the police.

They already routinely plant drugs as they're trained, this wouldn't be far off the mark.

[benEzra]

14. It's a win-win for the corporation promoting it, and for the gun-control advocates...

who would LOVE to price bulk ammunition out of the reach of the working class. American target shooters currently go through several BILLION rounds of ammunition a year, and the prohibitionists would love to scale that back.

Criminals can get around it easily enough, and so can the well-to-do, but the rest of us might have a bit of a problem. Particularly since ammunition prices have already tripled over the last three or four years, and the individually-marked-bullets scheme would require complete retooling of all civilian ammunition production in the United States (it's currently made in huge lots, but would need to be made in small individually marked batches to track numbered rounds to a numbered box).

Here's the kicker--a lot of these proposals make it a CRIME to possess unmarked ammunition after a certain date, like 2011. All those billions of rounds would have to be replaced by new manufacture, which would of course involve huge royalties paid to the corporation pushing the legislation, and nationwide shortages and price hikes as the supply wouldn't be able to keep up with demand.