Year: 2007

I’ve heard more than a few gun control proponents say privately that if people didn’t own guns, there wouldn’t be any way to steal them.  Publically, they won’t say this, because Handgun Control Inc. The Brady Campaign supposedly isn’t in favor of banning handguns any longer, at least publically.

One of these days I’m going to write a post on substitution.   There’s some interesting statics that I’ve run across that I want to share, which basically show that if you close down one means of criminal access to firearms, it boosts other means.  Create background checks at point-of-sale, you get a straw purchase problem.   Shut down straw purchases, you get a theft problem.   Shut down theft, you get more organized smuggling.  There will always be someone to fill the demand, which is obvious to us.   But the anti-gun folks are always going to push to close that one last “loophole” until we can’t own anything anymore.

The Brady Campaign made a press release today urging California to pass the microstamping bill:

Microstamping technology was most recently demonstrated last Friday at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill. There, the co-inventor of the technology, Todd Lizotte, conducted a successful live fire demonstration of the technology at the building’s shooting range with media
and Hill staff in attendance. Participants were able to see the remarkable clarity and redundancy of the technology when Lizotte projected a microscopic view of a microstamped cartridge onto a projector screen. “All of the questions about microstamping have been answered,” said Joshua Horwitz, Executive Director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun
Violence. “It has passed test after test. Law enforcement leaders want this. Community groups want this. It’s time to get it done.”

Interesting.  I thought guns were illegal in Washington D.C.  I’m curious to know exactly how the firearm was brought into the district, and under what conditions this test was conducted.  Of course, it’s quite possible and probably that they wouldn’t face prosecution here, because of the Parker decision (which they are against) in any case.   Wouldn’t that be a fun bit of irony?

Of course, it isn’t true that this technology is a panacea:

To test the effects of repeated firing, Beddow fitted engraved firing pins into six Smith and Wesson .40-caliber handguns that were issued to California Highway Patrol cadets for use in weapons training. After firing about 2,500 rounds, the letter/number codes on the face of the firing pins were still legible with some signs of wear. But the bar codes and dot codes around the edge of the pins were badly worn.

They also found that results varied widely depending on the type of firearm used, and the type of ammunition.  Of course, there’s also this:

Codes engraved on the face of the firing pin could easily be removed with household tools, Beddow found.

And you can bet, just like criminals remove serial numbers, they’ll remove these as well.  And these will be much more easily and thoroughly removed than serial numbers.

I’m not sure this serves any other purpose than to frustrate manufacturers, and drive smaller custom shops and gun makers out of business.  That would be fine by most of the groups who are supporting this nonsense.