NRA gun nuts are circulating an "ammunition encoding" fright-mail

[CANDO]

Has anyone seen it? Supposedly up to 18 states are set to adopt this legislation to encode all ammunition and it ties to who purchased said ammunition. They tie this to Obama, of course. But then I'm wondering how they do that when this is supposedly on the state level.

[gratuitous]

1. For being so heavily armed

NRA members seem to be a very easily scared bunch. Not a good mixture.

[CANDO]

3. I used the "reply all" feature with a response.

I said where were all you gun nuts when the Bushies were trashing the rest of the Bill of Rights? The 2nd Amendment is only part of the Constitution. Now they are lying in wait to run up their fund raising efforts with all new scare-mail tactics.

[dbonds]

5. Why do you think they are so heavily armed - they scare easily.

[fascisthunter]

6. yup

[nxylas]

14. And they're proud of it too

The real gun nuts (and no, I don't include all or even most gun owners in that category) seem to think that being scared of their own shadow somehow makes them tough. I don't get it, but I have seen them posting to other forums in what amounts to a virtual pissing contest over who can be the most frightened. One of them posted to an Orthodox Christian newsgroup I used to visit boasting about how he refused to hand over his gun when entering church in case the usher turned around and shot him with it :crazy:

[Ian David]

2. During Clinton, weren't they up-in-arms over adding taggants to explosives? n/t

[CANDO]

4. As well as a ban on armor piercing bullets.

Anything they do is done to run their fund raising operation. Without a chicken little mentality, their membership would dwindle to nothing.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. Yet another ballistics illiterate

Every hunting bullet will pierce soft armor...Like the now dead AWB, you have to understand the technology to legislate properly.

[AndrewP]

13. Their favorite way to make money is to fear monger.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

8. You do realize than in a few more years taggants will be of minimal value

No protesting them in the slightest, but they are far from the panacea many seem to think they are.

[Ian David]

9. Yes, I know. Eventually they spread through everything and everywhere.

Some day there would be taggants in our urine.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

20. Its amazing how hard it is to explain that to some people. They think that unwanted taggants will

somehow just go away.

Its already an issue in new urban areas.

[Retired AF Dem]

10. The main reason us "gun nuts"

were against the taggants was a safety issue. Nothing adds excitement to a day than a gun blowing apart in your hands.

[underpants]

11. Sounds like a good idea

[jody]

12. Laws that require each bullet be coded with a serial number will have no effect on criminals but

will be an unnecessary infringement on the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

One example is Alabama SB541 "This bill would require, commencing January 1, 2009, that handgun ammunition be coded. This bill would require by January 1, 2011, the disposal of all non-coded ammunition owned by private citizens or retail outlets."

That bill includes .22 rimfire ammunition and would affect every ammunition manufacturer in the United States.

[DireStrike]

16. Ah, I get it.

What if the law had a trade-in program instead? Unmarked bullets for marked ones, one-for-one? Or maybe two marked for each unmarked?

The effect on criminals would not be immediate, definitely. But eventually the unmarked bullets would dwindle out. How long do bullets last? Quite a long time, isn't it?

I guess all they can really do would be to make it illegal to manufacture unmarked ammunition.

[jody]

18. That is what the bill I cited would do "make it illegal to manufacture unmarked ammunition." n/t

[TroglodyteScholar]

17. I'm not exactly an NRA member here...

...but the example you just cited is downright off-the-deep-end!

[jody]

19. Senate Bill 12 in Georgia would "prohibit the manufacture, sale, and possession in this state of

handgun ammunition that does not contain a unique code".

See http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2009_10/fulltext/sb12.htm

[DireStrike]

15. Why would a gun owner care about this?

It's not like a huge privacy issue. All somebody could tell from a marked bullet is that you have a gun. I see no downside for law-abiding gun owners.

Should we turn the rhetoric around on them? "If you have nothing to hide, what are you afraid of?" Well nah, I don't want MY government saying such a thing. Still, I wouldn't cry about marked ammunition.

[Redneck Socialist]

21. It raises a couple of troubling issues

If I understand the proposed legislation correctly (it varies from state to state) it would create a data base of all ammunition purchases. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the potential privacy issues associated with that.

Many version of the legislation include a tax on ammo, thus raising the cost of ammunition.

Non-serialized ammo isn't grandfathered, so those shooters with stocks of old ammo would be forced to dispose of it and buy new ammo, or face potential legal issues.

It would in effect outlaw reloading, thus forcing shooters to buy factory ammo. Factory ammo is usually more expensive than home rolled, and oft times less accurate.

As a crime fighting tool, I'm not convinced as to its utility. A crime committed with stolen ammo would only lead back to the original purchaser. Also what to stop an enterprising criminal from picking up spent shells at the local range and scattering them about the crime scene in an effort to mislead law enforcement?

Privacy concerns aside, it strikes me as yet another feel good piece of legislation that does little to combat crime and much to inconvenience the law abiding.