Let's say there was a spate of toothpick stabbings at local nursing homes. Out of 23,319 nursing home patients in one city, the spate actually only involves 5 stabbings (and really only 2 people doing the stabbing), but apparently a spate doesn't require that many instances to be considered an epidemic.
Anyway, the local meeting of miniature despots council members meet and decide that the best way to keep toothpicks out of criminals' hands is to force registration of said timber based dental detritus removal units upon law abiding citizens.
How effective do you think that would be? Not very, right? One would think that even the most simplistic of criminals could easily create a tooth pick by picking up a piece of wood and whittling it down, right? What good would it be to ban something that could easily be made at home with no way of tracking it? You'd have to be an idiot to suggest it right?
Well, no one ever accused ACORN of being bright
Community organizer for the local NC ACORN group, The Rev. Melvin Whitley, says it's too easy for criminals to buy ammo, and he plans to close that loophole. ACORN'S initiative would expand the law to include ammunition, and may even include a requirement for bullet permits. "The problem with the law is that it allows criminals to have access to bullets. And it's the bullets that's killing us," according to Whitley.
Community organizer for the local NC ACORN group, The Rev. Melvin Whitley, says it's too easy for criminals to buy ammo, and he plans to close that loophole.
ACORN'S initiative would expand the law to include ammunition, and may even include a requirement for bullet permits.
"The problem with the law is that it allows criminals to have access to bullets. And it's the bullets that's killing us," according to Whitley.
Ignorance is the greatest weapon the anti's have against us and in fact, pretty much the only weapon. The astute reverend Whitley helps out by supplying a metric shit load of ignorance to the topic. Ignorant people assume that firearms and firearms related equipment is difficult to manufacture and therefor easy to block. They couldn't be more wrong.
Let's take the bullet example and show why this will not work. A cartridge has 4 components (we're talking metallic reloading here, not shotshell). The primer, the case, the powder, and the bullet all of which can be purchased easily from a multitude of places. In fact, I reload my own ammunition because it is much cheaper than buying factory loaded.
How could you possibly track those components? Brass serialization only works if you both ensure the bullet and casing always had the same serial number (nigh impossible considering the plant that makes one doesn't make the other) and you prevent brass from being picked up at a range. Good luck with that.
The powder cannot be tracked because... well, it's powder. How could you track baby powder or powdered tea? You couldn't. Especially considering that the powder in inside the case and there's not much left of it after it's been used.
Technically, you could serialize the primers, but being that there's billions of primers out there right now sans numbers and that the cost increase would prohibit the military and police forces from using any ammo made with them (i.e. a loophole that would be bigger than the imaginary gun-show one).
Last, and certainly not least, is the bullet. Lead is cheap, easy to come by, and as simple to track as water. Using nothing more than common household supplies, I can melt down the lead and pour them into molds to make as many bullets as I want and not a single one of them can be tracked back to me. So even if you were able to somehow manage to get brass serialization, you couldn't ever assure the bullet will match since it's trivial to pick up brass from a range.
Cost wise, for $20 bucks I can get a pound of powder. Brass is free at the range. $20 for 1000 primers and $60 for 1000 bullets if I wanted to purchase them pre-made. A pound of powder is 7,000 grains and really powerful rounds use 7 grains, so you get 1000 out of it, give or take.
$100 for 1000 cartridges. For an enterprising young thug, that's a pretty low price point to make untraceable ammunition to sell to his thug buddies. The reloading gear can be had for under $100 if you look.
I know I sound like a broken record about this but this isn't about, has never been about, nor will it ever be about limiting crime. It is a bald attempt at making the exercise of the right to bear arms so fraught with legal peril and monetary expense that we stop doing it.
It's not about safety, it's about control. Always has been. Always will.