Paul is all gushy about installing a de-facto gun registry under the guise of "microstamping". He, of course, heads off any debate by declaring
Gun lobby criticisms of microstamping sound quite familiar. About this advancement in forensic science they say that “it costs too much,” or “criminals will get around it,” or “only honest gun owners will be penalized,” or – you guessed it – “it’s a ban on guns.” We’ve heard it all before, and like before, it’s all nonsense.
Actually, Paul, the nonsense is part and parcel of your gig, not ours.
Let's take these one at a time shall we? And if any of you hyper-intelligent college credentialed people out there wish to show me where I'm wrong, please do. Granted, from what I've seen, that usually entails insulting me and then running away, but I digress.
"It costs too much" - Well, somebody has to pay for it. I have a feeling that each machine isn't $34.95 at Wal-Mart. Now, Mr. Gun Company doesn't have to pay for it, instead they increase the cost of their firearms so that the end user absorbs the price. Since the Brady Campaign fails on a regular basis in getting laws passed to prevent gun ownership, they go the other route which is make it so hard or expensive that nobody can afford to purchase them. This is only another part of that ploy.
The cost, even if slight, is too expensive for a technology that will not work as explained later.
"The criminals will get around it" - In 30 seconds I can have the firing pin removed from my Glock. In 2 minutes, I can have it out of my Dan Wesson. I'd estimate an hour for the Ruger because it was such a pain in the ass to get the bolt out in the first place, but that's just the sarcasm talking.
So, replacement with a new or used, non stamped pin is a quick job. If I'm wrong, please indicate why.
If replacement is too slow, a simple file would damage the pin enough to circumvent the marking while keeping the pin's ability to strike the primer with enough force in tact. Again, if this is incorrect, a quick note would be nice.
Heaven forbid you use a revolver. They don't drop the spent casings. I bet you'd see an up tick in revolver sales.
However, the most likely scenario is the the criminal, intent on breaking the law with the gun anyway, has not obtained the gun in a manner that would track that serial number to him or her anyway. Most gun crimes use stolen or black market weaponry, why would they care if you can find out who had it last, legally?
"Only honest gun owners will be penalized" - Only law abiding citizens buy their firearms from reputable dealers. We buy them from friends or other individuals as well, and when we do, the tracing of the firearm stops. If I sell my Glock, I don't report the sale to the all seeing government just like when I sell a piano, a pair of ill fitting leather pants, or a lawnmower. And if the firearm is stolen from me, the tracing stops with not even a "Yeah, I know who had it after me".
To enforce this, you'd need to have penalties for having firearms that aren't stamped. Who are the only people who follow the law? The honest gun owners.
"It’s a ban on guns" - No, it's a registry. To make the serial numbers useful, you'd need a database of them tied to the person who (last) owned it. To make this technology work, you would be forced to require that all current firearms are retrofitted with this technology. You would also have to legislate that all firing pin manufacturing would require this technology and then track firing pin sales. That extra amount of work that it takes to keep these types of records handy so the ATF doesn't shut down your store because you put 'Y' instead of 'YES' adds costs onto doing your business.
The loss of the number of gun dealers over the years has nothing to do with the lack of interest in the product, but rather the immense cost of obtaining a license and staying within the ridiculous regulations. This is the only way to ban guns - make them too expensive to bother with. And the Brady Bunch is trying desperately to make this happen.
Of course, even if this technology were mandated, how would you apply it to the millions of firearms already on the market? Would you require each and every handgun be turned in to be stamped? Who would pay for that? The law abiding. Who would actually do it? The law abiding. Who would go to jail for not doing it? The law abiding. And how would you know which gun owners haven't done so without a registry?
To implement this is to continue the move towards a police state, where the government knows everything to ensure "our safety". It does nothing of the sort and only makes more criminals because people like me would refuse to turn in my guns to be identified (several of them have no connection to me whatsoever as they were sold or given to me. Those transactions were never recorded.)
Face it, Paul. Microstamping is a failure of imagination. Sure, it can work only if every gun used in a crime was accurately recorded from manufacturer to last owner and we allowed the police unlimited powers in looking through our personal data.
This is why we gunnies fight these ideas. Because it takes a police state to implement them and when you can track guns in the guise of public safety, there's nothing stopping the government from attaching the words "public safety" to anything in order to give them all the smokescreen they need to abolish the rest of our rights.
Again, if I've made a mistake in any logic here please, using Reasoned Discourse™ and no insults, please illustrate the errors. I'm more interested in the truth than simply 'being right'.
rolled out on
Wednesday, August 22, 2007 1:40 PM