by Jack Lee
The microstamping of the firing pin on handguns sold in California will not reduce crime, but it sure will reduce gun sales and that’s the real agenda. Microstamping of firing pins is not a new idea and if law enforcement thought it was that helpful you would have a many States with a microstamping law on the books. So far the only State to pass this legislation is California and California also happens to have the most radical liberal democrats in charge of State government. You don’t need a microstamp to make that connection!
The prudent thing to do with any law based strictly on theory would be to place a sunset clause on it, then put it up for renewal ONLY if there is demonstrable results that proves it was worthwhile. Not in California…that simple logic is rarely applied here. And it’s virtually never applied when it comes to gun legislation.
The silly gun-grabbers in Sacramento are determined group of emotional fools that are determined to ratchet-up gun laws that will remove weapons from private ownership. They have very little interest matching cost verses the public good or the public good verses erosion of a civil liberty to determine the value of a gun law.
Time and the plethora of extremist laws has revealed their real hidden agenda and it’s quite obvious. Whatever the anti-gun lobby can do to make your gun ownership more expensive and more difficult without respect to the good it may do is fair game.
If you really need a better explanation of microstamping to be persuaded, let’s take a look:
1. The Democrat proponents say microstamping will positively match the firearm to the registered owner and this will help solve homicides and save lives.
The above statement is mostly false. If the killer was using his own registered firearm it might help. But, first the shell casings must be left at the scene for the police to find. However, the majority of handguns are revolvers and they don’t eject casing, so there’s nothing left behind to find.
Next, the overwhelming number of homicides by handguns are committed with a stolen or unregistered weapons.
Generally speaking homicide is a crime of passion and the shooter tends to be known to the victim. Improved gun ownership detection methods has a very limited application in most of these cases.
In the majority of cases where a gun-owner used his own firearm in a shooting police have several other easier and more direct methods to connect the gun to the shooter. Furthermore, firing pins are like fingerprints and they always have been. They have unique manufacturing marks on them and this can link a fired cartridge to a particular weapon. This has existed since there were firing pins and microscopes capable of making the comparison.
The technology of microstamping has not even been perfected, it’s still in the experimental phase. Currently there are no studies to indicate it is worth the cost v benefit, even if it were perfected, but there are studies that prove it has a very limit application. When California passed the requirement for microstamping the firing pin it had the effect of passing a restrictive gun law without actually calling it that. The only reason that holds up is the Democrats did it to make handguns obsolete in California and pave the way to make them obsolete in the other states too.
If the truth were known who poses the greatest risk to our freedom and security, random killers using a handgun or Democrats in the State Legislature, I would have to say it’s not even close… we have far more to fear from Democrats than murderers.
Well, I did a tiny bit of reading (Wiki is a wonderful thing) and it seems what it boils down to is that any “registered owner” is gonna be a whole lot more “responsible” for his weapons.
That bothers you?
But also from what I’ve read, if you are a moderate gun owner, who takes his one or two weapons to the range regularly, you are going to defeat this new technology fairly quickly.
Overall, I’d say the domestic surveillance rationalization applies here: if you’ve got nothing to hide, what’s the diff?
And for all the real world vagaries of application and execution and whatnot, the technology probably will catch some killers. These gun manufacturers should just quit kicking and do it. Any added production costs will be passed on the the customer and, it’s wicked and callous, but I’m afraid that I just don’t care if you have to spend a little more for your toys, Jack.
Libby my gun buying days are pretty much over, but my concern about fairness and freedom are still a great concern. So, what concerns me more is not the additonal cost this law will add to the purchase of firearms, it’s this frenzy to enact into law anything that complicates gun ownership and their eagerness to back a technology that will have at the VERY most… a minimal impact on crime. Libby, this is not about your security or a tool for law enforcement, this is a deception and you and I as voters should not be played like pawns in a political game.
I can’t ask you to to see it from my perspective because it wouldn’t be fair and it would be near impossible, but I wish you could! I know this subject very well. I have very stong opions here from the standpoint of a casual firearms owner and as a police officer. That’s an unusual background and there are few people who could see this from my perspective that why I have empathy for your thinking on this one. But, what I’m asking you to do is take a tiny leap of faith this time and trust that I’m qualified to have a well informed opinion on this law. And I’m telling you over and over, this isn’t about solving crime or protecting the public as much as it is an attempt to remove firearms from the public! This is a deceptive law. It’s a clever means to an end, but for a hidden agenda. You can agree with that agenda too, that’s fine, I just don’t like the deception that is being employed now.
As a State we should be better than that. We should expect (and demand) better from our legislators than this phony law. Libby, these characters in Sacramento are wrong and they are lacking in ethics with the way they’ve approached this law. You and I should not be treated like mushrooms… this is about respect for the public, and them being honest as representatives of the people. This is not about my toys (guns) – it’s so much more than that. We’re losing something far more precisous than a few more dollars tacked on to the price of a pistol. I hope you see that?
You are right, Jack. I just cannot see how this will deprive anybody of their firearms … probably because there is no mechanism in the law to do that. You will have to be more explicit about just how this insidious weapons seizure will come to pass.
The technology may make firearm owners a little anxious about their responsibilities as a gun owners … but this is a fine thing … IMHO.
Libby, it makes gun owners more responsible? How? We already have a serial number of the receiver and it’s recorded. Gun owners must file a transfer when selling their firearm, thats the law. This microstamping on the firing pin is redundant in this area.
Do you have any idea how easy it is to swap out a firing pin? It’s super easy and the cost is minimal. Libby, I just can’t see how this law will do anything except prevent gun manufacturers from doing business in CA. That’s a hit on sales tax revenues and a restraint of trade. Surely you see that, right?
Anything that adds more cost to gun ownership affects ownership. There’s your depriving… now you tell me how this law is justified?
Jack states: “This is a deceptive law. It’s a clever means to an end, but for a hidden agenda”
BINGO!!! In the real world it will serve no real benefit to reducing crime, preventing criminal use of stolen guns, or even be effective or benefit law enforcement in solving crime. Even if the micro-stamp survives a few hundred rounds of use with out altering/changing the the original micro stamp mark, it will only trace back to the original first owner, or the last DROS’ed owner. It will not tell you who pulled the trigger. It also is so very easy to alter as well to make it unidentifiable. Bullets already transfer barrel striations as well as chamber marks on ejected rounds have unique marking that police identify what weapon may have been used, and now most gun manufactures fire the gun first prior to sale and note these marks. so why the redundancy with this Crap law? It’s only purpose is to get around Second Amendment rights and STOP GUN SALES in California’s It is a cheap Gun- grab trick.
This law will never make a gun owner more anxious about their responsibilities, it’s intent is just to make less guns owners in California.
The other hidden purpose for this stupid law is it will attract votes…we are in another election cycle and democrats always trot out the vote getting issues. “… we have far more to fear from Democrats than murderers.”
Double BINGO!
“Libby, it makes gun owners more responsible? How? We already have a serial number of the receiver and it’s recorded.”
But this is a means to trace the cartridges, in addition to the gun.
“Gun owners must file a transfer when selling their firearm, that’s the law.”
Yes, but I’ll bet sellers frequently don’t do it. They will be much more motivated now, so the law will make them more responsible.
“This microstamping on the firing pin is redundant in this area. Do you have any idea how easy it is to swap out a firing pin? It’s super easy and the cost is minimal.”
You know that, but I’d be willing to bet a vast some that vast quantities of gun owners don’t know any more about the weapon than to point and shoot. Nobody’s saying that the law will be universally helpful … just more helpful in the quest to track down miscreants.
“Libby, I just can’t see how this law will do anything except prevent gun manufacturers from doing business in CA.”
I’ve told you many times; you’ve seen it many times … industry always crabs about any regulation imposed upon them, no matter how sensible. They howl; they sue; and then they just do it. So any cessation of gun sales in California will be temporary.
“That’s a hit on sales tax revenues and a restraint of trade.”
Pleeease. Minimal. And the common good is a far greater consideration. Well, … to some of us. You are certainly not deprived of anything you already own. Nor are you deprived of the ability to acquire more stuff, but in future you will be acquiring technologically modified stuff in the interest of the common good.
Chill.
Libby, you and the radicals in your party are very fond of “Minimal” hits on the private sector…you’ve thought up thousands and thousands of them and peppered them liberally all throughout the tax and regulatory law. They add up. We are fed up. Case closed.