Blocking Gun Laws With Patents 1165
New submitter robkeeney writes "Legislators in several states are working on laws that would require certain gun manufacturers to implement 'microstamping' to help law enforcement solve gun crimes. 'Lasers engrave a unique microscopic numeric code on the tip of a gun’s firing pin and breech face. When the gun is fired, the pressure transfers markings to the shell casing and the primer. By reading the code imprinted on casings found at a crime scene, police officers can identify the gun and track it to the purchaser, even when the weapon is not recovered.' As with any gun-related legislation, many people oppose these new laws. In California, a law passed in 2007 requires that when microstamping (which is easily defeat-able) is no longer patent encumbered, all new guns in CA must use it. To fight it, an organization called the Calguns Foundation paid a fee to extend the patent in order to prevent the law from going into effect."
Damn! (Score:5, Funny)
Luckily I reload all shots myself that I use in crimes.
Additionally I use revolver or if I use a pistol, I use a brass catcher.
So dear murderers, get replacement firing pins now, before you have to order them in Canada.
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
So dear murderers, get replacement firing pins now, before you have to order them in Canada.
I just pick up brass at the police range and reload it when I murder people.
No need for extra firing pins, though; a bit of sandpaper is all that is needed to remove the microstamping. But that would be illegal, and we all know criminals wouldn't dare break the law before they go out to murder someone.
I don't believe the lawmakers could really be this retarded; there has to be some other reason they're pushing for this law (perhaps just general harassment of gun owners?).
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
(perhaps just general harassment of gun owners?)
That's my vote. Make it annoying to carry (it already pretty much is) and law abiding citizens will just not do it.
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
Law-abiding citizens are the bigger threat (Score:3, Funny)
It's always the law-abiding citizen that ends up killing their ex-wife.
The focus of us liberal gun-grabbers is to remove guns from the law-abiding citizen, BEFORE they can kill their ex-wives.
Re:Law-abiding citizens are the bigger threat (Score:4, Funny)
You make a great case for banning marriage. No marriage, no ex-wives!
=Smidge=
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
All the smart criminals work in places like Congress, law offices, and financial institutions, so of course they're not interested in catching those people; they'd rather give them big bailouts.
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Informative)
It will be the legal owner, who may not even know that his gun was stolen, who will have his door kicked in.
If someone has a gun stolen and they don't notice or report it, they probably deserve to have their door kicked in. They're responsible for it. Police aren't complete idiots anyway, if it's a suburban dad registered to a gun and the killing was drug related a thousand miles away, they will probably knock rather than kick the door down.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Annoying"? Owning and carrying a gun is a lot less "annoying" than driving a car or buying an iPhone or getting your insurance company to pay for minor surgery.
Anybody who whines about filling out a form and paying a $10 fee to own a gun does not have sufficient equanimity to carry a deadly weapon, IMO. Fuck them.
As a gun owner for 41 years and carrier of an Illinois FOID card since the early 1980s, I vote
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
I got my first gun back when most Americans, and most conservative Americans, rightly believed that the Second Amendment was not about personal gun-toting at all
Actually, if you were at all familiar with contents of The Federalist Papers and the debates around the penning of the Bill of Rights, you'd know that the 2nd Amendment is about personal, individual keeping and bearing of arms. You are correct that for a number of years in the late 20th century it was popular to pretend otherwise, but that belief was not then, nor was it ever, true.
Re:Damn! (Score:4, Informative)
"I got my first gun back when most Americans, and most conservative Americans, rightly believed that the Second Amendment was not about personal gun-toting at all."
Constitutional scholars have disposed of your asserted conclusion.
http://www.guncite.com/journals/reycrit.html [guncite.com]
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Interesting)
"I got my first gun back when most Americans, and most conservative Americans, rightly believed that the Second Amendment was not about personal gun-toting at all."
Constitutional scholars have disposed of your asserted conclusion.
http://www.guncite.com/journals/reycrit.html [guncite.com]
Constitutional scholars have done research studies in the 1970s identifying that only a minority of Americans believed the Second Amendment was about bearing arms as part of a militia? Because that's all he asserted.
Constitutional scholars may have indicated an error in those beliefs, but your linked article says nothing about percentage of the population. Furthermore, your linked article makes a leap to an unsupported conclusion: that the second amendment guarantees a right to self-defense against criminals. The article provides plenty of citations - which I agree with - that the 2nd Amendment is about preventing the government from rounding up arms to prevent a rebellion, as the British government was doing in the pre-Revolutionary era. However, the 2nd Amendment does not guarantee a right to use those weapons. Obviously, in fact, using them against the government would be an act of treason, just as the Revolution itself was treason, and thus barred by the Constitution.
No, as your cited article correctly notes, the 2nd Amendment is about the right of the people to keep arms as a deterrent to a tyrannical government. It says nothing about using them, or using them against criminals. The latter right is more properly found in the 5th Amendment.
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Informative)
That's my vote. Make it annoying to carry (it already pretty much is) and law abiding citizens will just not do it.
Okay, just how is having a microscopic pattern on a fining pin "annoying" to the end user? He won't know or care, unless he kills someone.
Re:Damn! (Score:4, Informative)
Now, you could argue that blunt weapons are no better than guns, but I haven't heard of anyone accidentally kill someone with a baseball bat. Or shoot themselves in the foot with one. You could also argue that it would be easy for the first gangmember to start carrying guns, and then everyone will, but this is a slippery slope argument. Why don't criminals in the US all carry M60s, seeing as they're much better than handguns? Oh, that's right, because the sale and ownership of M60s is very restricted.* Go back to beginning of this post.
So yes, in a country where criminals don't carry guns, I would meet you in a dark alley, but I might bring a few friends who are going to play some baseball later in the evening.
*: I know it is technically legal for a civilian in the US to own an M60, but you would have to acquire a "transferrable" example, i.e. one manufactured prior to 1986 which is still in working order and hasn't had the receiver replaced. This will cost you upwards of $50 000. I call this severly restricted, partly by law and partly by free market economics.
Re: (Score:3)
Even better - pick up brass from any sporting/shooting event. Be sure to reload using cartridges from three different widely-separated gun ranges.
Good luck with that.
The firing pin? Anyone with even a half-assed mechanical shop and a small metal lathe can make new pins by the dozen: "Oh, sorry Ossifer, my pin broke and this was cheaper."
Besides... barrel rifling already makes a fingerprint-like marking on the shell/slug/bullet, and that's going to be a hell of a lot more useful in identifying the gun it was
Re: (Score:3)
Just a thought:
Removing the microstamping is going to be illegal (if it already isn't).
It would follow that all replacement pins would be required to be microstamped (and you couldn't make your own).
how many rounds through a gun before the microstamp is occluded? (either by wear down, or but material filling the grooves).
Simply emulate that amount of wear for plausible deniability.
-nB
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides... barrel rifling already makes a fingerprint-like marking on the shell/slug/bullet, and that's going to be a hell of a lot more useful in identifying the gun it was shot from than any other method thought up so far...
Only in TV shows and movies, fact is most handgun and rifle barrels today are mass produced on hammer forging equipment on a mandrel which makes all of them virtually the exact same on a run of tends of thousands of barrels. You can narrow down your suspect list using it, you can even match similar makes and models, but you'll never be able to prove it came out of the gun with serial number #24953 or #24954 or even #25953 for that matter.
Re:Damn! (Score:4, Funny)
"Well, sir, it looks like there were actually 17 shooters, and each one only fired one shot."
Re: (Score:3)
So, you are advocating the mandatory registration of guns now by all US citizens? Sure makes it easier to confiscate the guns if the govt want to....
I've not lived in states that require gun registration....I've only bought used firearms from individuals for cash, no real easy traceability.
I'm just not a fan of having the govt know what or how many guns I own, why do they need to kno
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is we want to find some way to link it back to someone when they commit a valid crime, and yet not possible to link it back to someone otherwise. Not exactly an easy problem to solve.
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
I've long been fully in favor of the right to bear arms. Last month, I spent a few days in Paris, where I was targeted by pick-pockets three times. One of the little fuckers I caught by the neck and had to restrain myself from killing him. I think that if these guys had hand guns, I'd be in a whole different place right now.
So, I've changed my opinion on hand guns, even though I love using them for target practice. The rifles used for hunting are an important part of our American heritage, but handguns are simply for killing people. If you own a hunting rifle, there's a good chance you used it for it's intended purpose. Using a handgun for it's intended purpose is only legal in self defense, and they suck at self defense compared to shotguns. So, as much as I loved firing a Colt 45 at the dirt in my friends back yard, I think I'd prefer that future low-lifes trying to take my wallet be like the pick-pockets in Paris. They could have pulled a knife, but in reality, that's just a bit too dangerous for most criminals. They might get their ass kicked. Hand guns make killing easy, and criminals are all about what's easy.
Now, that said, it's intensely scary having the government require us to register guns. I think the two groups of people I fear most are criminals with guns, and a government trying to take mine away. Is there some middle ground were we can agree to keep hand-guns out of circulation while allowing the rest to be used without Big Brother's oversight?
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Interesting)
The cost of microstamping guns is expected to be small, but it's not 0, and anything above 0 will probably lead to an incremental reduction in the number of guns sold.
Knowing most of the gun collectors I know, not-0 would would have to be pretty significant to effect their hobby. It could be an issue, though, I doubt very much it is some intentional conspiracy to hurt gun manufacturers or gun sales. If it raises percent, then sure, get mad about it, if not, live with it, we do for every other damn product in the world.
. Another reason is that it's a standard tactic of moral crusaders of all kinds to chip away at rights that they don't have the support to do away with all at once.
What rights are being chipped away here? You still run around bearing your arms to your hearts content.
Do you live in the same America as I do? Anyone ever suggesting that we shouldn't put guns in Crackerjack boxes is shouted down these days. Hell, if I own a place of business, and decide that your not allowed to carry on my property, I'm now somehow trying to destroy the Second Amendment, blah blah. With guns, and everything else, we've thrown all moderation to the wind, and let the extremists win.
Which, coincidentally, is why this is the first time I've been on Slashdot in awhile, and thanks to this topic, it might be the last for awhile. I'm so goddamn sick of politics. I used to love them, but now there is no point. Everyone is 100% correct, and if anyone disagrees with them (or doesn't give them and there golden little opinion due reverence) they are a moron. No one is ever going to discuss anything, because obviously they are 100% right, and everyone else is 100% wrong.
Perhaps I'm just getting old.
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Interesting)
a standard tactic of moral crusaders of all kinds to chip away at rights that they don't have the support to do away with all at once.
Where does it say "the right to bear arms in a way that can't be traced"?
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Informative)
> I just pick up brass at the police range and reload it when I murder people.
The stamping is going to be on the primer. If you're reloading, you'll end up popping the old primer out anyway.
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
Criminals aren't going to stand around the crime scene, collect the casings, sandpaper them off, and put them back on the ground, before running off.
Why would anyone sandpaper the casings? They'd just sandpaper the firing pin and the breech face - before heading off to kill someone.
The 2nd Amendment wasn't for your personal liberty.
If you don't like the 2nd, just say so openly, and campaign for its abolition. Why do you feel the urge to engage in sophistry to argue that it doesn't say something that it obviously does?
My Right to a Predator Drone (Score:3)
But how far does the protection of your 2nd amendment go?
Does it just cover "Bear Arms" ( http://images.sodahead.com/polls/001063269/bear_arms_xlarge.jpeg )
Or does every citizen have the right to join in on the fun of flying predator drones?
Or does it just stop at the right to collect AK-47's, uzi 9mm's and Motorcycle mounted Chain-Guns? ( http://i902.photobucket.com/albums/ac227/drdubbya/machete_060-535x327.jpg )
Re:My Right to a Predator Drone (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not an American, either, but the US Constitution is written in plain English and accessible to anyone who wants to read it.
Anyway, the standing interpretation - which is what ultimately matters - is as follows (per DC v Heller):
"Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. "
However:
"The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition—in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute—would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional."
So e.g. bans on fully automatic firearms (and Predator drones and motorcycle mounted chainguns) are reasonable, while bans on widely used self-defense, hunting or sporting guns, such as your typical handgun or semi-auto rifle, are not.
Re: (Score:3)
Or we can look at the historical interpretation [wikipedia.org] of the amendment closer to the time when it was enacted - e.g. 19th century - and from there conclude that it was pretty much always understood to have a very broad meaning not restricted by the militia close. The notion that it limited the scope of the whole amendment did not appear until late 20th century. But when it comes to ancient language and grammar I will trust the reading of the contemporaries of the text - where it is clearly exressed - to modern in
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
The best thing, of course, is to just ban guns from the country.
Do you have a magical box or something? How do you keep guns out of the hands of criminals? There would be a black market. The criminals are the ones you need to worry about having guns not law-abiding citizens. Also, why is banning guns from the country "the best thing"?
You don't understand. (Score:5, Funny)
If guns are illegal, then anyone who has a gun is a criminal, and you can prevent crime by just arresting everyone who has guns.
Re:You don't understand. (Score:5, Insightful)
If guns are illegal, then anyone who has a gun is a criminal, and you can prevent crime by just arresting everyone who has guns.
You can also prevent rape by cutting off the penis of every male and sewing up the vagina of every female. Just because something can be used for a crime it doesn't mean we should make it a criminal offense to own one. Guns are a tools. How you use a tool makes all the difference. Law-abiding citizens use guns for fun, hunting, and most importantly defense. Criminals use guns to murder, rape, steal, and destroy.
Re:You don't understand. (Score:5, Funny)
The gun is good. The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life to poison the Earth with a plague of men, as once it was, but the gun shoots death, and purifies the Earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth ... and kill!
Re:You don't understand. (Score:5, Funny)
(*or vagina)
Re:You don't understand. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You don't understand. (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny because its true. I am very happy to live in a country where guns are rarely seen or used. The american love and fascination with guns and violence seems to be simple overcompensation. I cannot think of any time in my life when I would have needed a gun. We call it being civilised. Gun nuts of course just cant understand.
Re:You don't understand. (Score:5, Insightful)
As a non American, I can totally vouch for that.
I have never ever needed a gun in my life, and I dont relish the thought of having a gun battle with somebody because an argument got out of hand.
The American fascination with shooting people to death is disturbing and sad.
Re: (Score:3)
Wasn't there a Fox News report that, as an aside, said that a certain Nordic country was not democratic because it had gun laws? Fox News semes to like putting in editorial non-sequiturs like that in an otherwise straight news piece.
Re:You don't understand. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a quote we have which puts it into perspective, perhaps: It is better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6. Which would you prefer?
Apparently shooting people is merely an American hobby now? That's a silly notion. There are riots, civil wars, and other violent movements using all kinds of small arms on every inhabited continent on the planet; quite often (if not always) simultaneously.
Re:You don't understand. (Score:4, Insightful)
If guns are illegal, then anyone who has a gun is a criminal, and you can prevent crime by just arresting everyone who has guns.
You can sure try to arrest us... Best wear your vest and bring bigger guns....
A) *woosh!*
B) Would you honestly die to retain posession of your firearms? Or are you just trying to impress all these internet strangers with how much of a man you are for being willing to stand up to a bunch of guys with assault rifles?
Re: (Score:3)
The person attempting to separate a firearm from its owner is an agent of tyranny. It is moral, almost to the point of an obligation, to kill agents of tyranny or die trying.
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Informative)
Breivik actually wielded legally obtained [wikipedia.org], registered guns. Which is to say, Norway was certainly not "so unbelievably mild, that no one was allowed to have a gun".
Re:Damn! (Score:4, Insightful)
Its odd, how in your gun toting utopia, the USA, which has regular gun massacres, I'm aware of very few - if *any* instances of one of the concealed carry heroes actually stopping a massacres by shooting the nutter.
The term you're looking for is observation bias. You don't read about the massacres that didn't happen because the bad guy got shot at.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Informative)
It has happened. A parishioner at a church stopped a madman before he did much damage. Someone in Utah at a mall brought down the killer before the cops showed up. Of course, those don't make the big news because they are so ... distasteful ... to the hoplophobes, don't make for nearly as scary headlines, and provide almost no scary followup headlines which the increasing death toll, trial, appeals, punishment, and survivor interviews do. The news media is in the business of selling ads to news readers, so no news is not news.
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Interesting)
Another thing you may not be aware of. The Center for Disease Control hates guns, and when they did a congressional mandated study on defensive gun uses, they found 1.5 million of them. Most of these were just scaring a burglar away by showing the gun or racking the slide, no actual shots fired. But at the very least, tens of thousands of lives are saved by guns every year.
Don't read much about that kind of thing, do you? Too scary to your preconceived notions, I reckon.
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
Defensive gun use != a life saved.
Just because you brandish a gun to "defend" yourself, does not mean that you would have died otherwise.
One need only look at statistics in other countries with lesser rates of gun ownership to see this.
Now, you can make the argument that the U.S. is tainted by the flood of guns and that since it is tainted, gun ownership is sensible (similar concept to MAD), but by and large, in the civilized world, you don't need a gun to be safe.
In fact, even in the U.S, if you've got the cash to spare on a gun, you're statistically better off spending the money on an automatic defibrillator.
This isn't to take away for other gun uses. I've fired M-16s at the range and enjoyed myself quite a bit. You like to hunt? Not my thing, but good for you. I just don't buy the defense claim. I've looked into it extensively and I think while possible, you can find a few incidents here and there where a gun clearly saved a life, I think it's wildly overblown.
Re: (Score:3)
The best thing, of course, is to just ban guns from the country. Grab them from every household. The gun-nuts can easily get a different hobby, such as gardening. And government can train them to not live in constant fear for their lives, like we liberal gun-grabbers do.
Why ban guns? You have a reason?
The 2nd Amendment wasn't for your personal liberty. You do not have any personal liberty, something the libertarians don't understand. Everyone gets to live in the structure defined for them by society. Living inside the Matrix is no less valid than living outside the Matrix.
And the bullshit sociology comes out. It's all fine to live in the "structure", defined for you by society, if that means you get what you want. It's not as fine, if the structure, defined for you by society is a quick death or hellish living. But all that's equally "valid" to you, isn't it?
Re: (Score:3)
You're all fucking idiots for falling for an obvious troll like parent. "We liberal gun-grabbers"? Do you really think anyone would say this in a serious manner?
Re:Damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
Please state the primary intended use for a gun.
That specific question dpends on who has the gun and what they want to do with it.
However, the primary *benefit* of guns has been to equalize right and might. As the saying goes, God may have created man, but Sam Colt made them equal.
Look up the Deacons for Defense, where black WW II and Korean War vets in Louisiana in the 1960s used their guns to hold the KKK-infested local and state governments accountable. Look up the battle of Athens in 1946, where WW II vets used their guns to outs a corrupt government and overturn a fraudulent election.
It takes a lot of practice to be good with bows and arrows, or swords, and both take a lot of strength. It takes very little skill, only strength, to kill someone with your fists. Defending yourself from any of these requires faster feet or more skill and strength. It takes only a little skill, and no unusual strength, to defend yourself with a gun. I would rather justice depended on both sides having guns than bad guys having fists.
If your fairy godmother could wave her wand and eliminate all guns, the world would not be better off. There would of course be fewer gun deaths, but there would be more "might makes right" criminals and governments, and suicides would not drop.
If you think a law against guns and the police sweeps necessary to enforce it would eliminate guns, you are deluded and naive. When anything is outlawed, only the outlaws have it.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Damn! (Score:4, Insightful)
Criminals as in gang member, don't. Criminals as in drunken wife beater who one day shoots his wife do.
The flaw in gun owners is that they see the world in blank and white, with the law-abiding beacons of righteousness on one side and the tattoo ridden coke pushing gang bangers on the other.
In reality, there's plenty of Joes just one more drink away from becoming news for the worst reasons.
utter pointlessness (Score:5, Insightful)
So... file the firing pin?
Buy a gun from outside CA and bring it in?
Laser engrave some other sod's ID?
Hold a firing pin party?
It sounds like a horrendous waste of time and money, whether you want gun control or not. Ineffective legislation is the worse of all outcomes.
Or just buy a new firing pin (Score:3)
Components of a gun aren't restricted. For some guns, that can be nearly all of them. Like an AR-15 the only part that is the actual "gun" is the lower receiver. Everything else, you can mail order. Gun laws are a very strange mix of shit like that, particularly since some of the regulations were implemented as tax regulations to try and get around any second amendment concerns.
At any rate, firing pins are cheap and easy to order. They are just literally little metal pins. They are also something that is pr
Re: (Score:3)
We're also ignoring a very interesting question: how exactly would they get this thing to survive more than a handful of shots?
Re:utter pointlessness (Score:5, Insightful)
The very idea of microstamping was never intended to assist law enforcement. It was specifically intended to target lawful gun owners to cause them harassment and extra expense and to better "track the law-abiding citizenry". I've been employed with a municipal police department for over 16 years, in a city that has more than its fair share of shootings and even random "gunfire in the night". Our forensics team has zero problems identifying shell casings using existing stereo microscopy technology to match it to a gun that fired the cartridge, but 99 times out of 100 there's no need to ever do that because regular ordinary police detective work that already solves the gun crimes is well established and quite effective. In the case of drive-by shootings in the gang areas of town, by the time the gunshots call is made to 911, the gang detectives already know who the culprits are and are ready to round them up because... well, these cops know their "clientele" pretty well from past repeat offenses.
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There's a billboard on the way up to Atlanta from Florida: "Strippers... Need we say more?"
Advertising is never tasteful.
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While I agree, we have to remember that criminals are not necessarily the smartest people. The know the dangerous end of a gun and that's it. While they might be smart enough to ask whether or not firing pin had been filed, it's not like they have the knowledge or equipment to actually verify it when purchasing it.
It's easy to get around and is certainly not a panacea. But it would probably help solve some crimes.
Re: (Score:3)
No, it isn't. The ID on brass probably won't even be admissible in court for the reason that brass gets reused all the time. Any would-be criminal's defense would be, "I fired those rounds at the firing range, and the REAL murderer retrieved them from the floor, reloaded them and used them to commit the crime."
Well that presumably shouldn't be a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
As the firing pin hits the primer, and that you don't reuse, you get a new primer to put in the case. As I said in another post a more real problem would just be people getting new firing pins. You can order them online and people do. Some AR enthusiasts like to keep an extra firing pin and bolt with them since those are the most likely things to go wrong. If they do, swap them out, go back to plinking.
Re: (Score:3)
As others have pointed out, the cap will be replaced anyway. But the flaw in your logic is in thinking evidence has to be admissible in court to be useful. If the cops find your stamp on a shell casing, they know where to concentrate their resources. They know who to get a DNA sample from to compare with evidence on the scene. They know whose laundry basket to go through looking for shirts with powder residue. They know whose barrel to match up to bullets at the scene.
The reason most killers get caug
Re: (Score:3)
Why is DNA evidence admissible?
That is a very good question and the answer is that it probably shouldn't be.
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Re:utter pointlessness (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahhh, the sheltered suburbanite slashdot demographic, blessedly unfamiliar with the real world...
Guys, the vast majority of criminals are not planning out everything with meticulous detail. In fact, most criminals are criminals because they are uneducated and never learned impulse control, and act irrationally and emotionally. They're not going to forge different numbers on the gun. The vast majority of them will not understand even the basic structure of the gun in the first place.
Re: (Score:3)
They're not going to forge different numbers on the gun.
Nope. They either won't care because they've stolen the gun themselves and the coding points to some law abiding citizen, or the streetcorner gun dealer will tack on ten dollars for the added feature of scraping the coding of the Saturday night special off. (And yes, the Saturday night special is a revolver, typically, that doesn't drop brass at a shooting and thus it won't matter.)
The only people you will catch are those who are not career criminals and have probably left enough other clues that the codi
Re:utter pointlessness (Score:5, Informative)
File the firing pin? Good luck getting the gun to fire reliably after that.
The amount of filing required is far less than the tolerances for getting the round to fire. Actually, one of the biggest critiques of this law is that a few magazines into the gun's life does all the "filing" you need.
Re:utter pointlessness (Score:4, Informative)
It may not be obvious now, but whenever you deal with firearms, it is inconvenient.
There is NO room for error when dealing with firearms laws. If I'm late on getting my car's registration renewed, I can get hit with a $25 fine.
If I am late on getting that pistol that sits in a locked box in the back of my closet and hasn't been opened in 2 years renewed... I can be charged with a LOT of crimes which carry VERY stiff penalties. (which ones, I don't know... but I'm sure I wouldn't like it)
The point is, whenever there is a compliance law relating to firearms, you have to be absolutely anal retentive about getting EVERYTHING PERFECT. Even if you think you got everything right, what if you didn't and you end up somehow carrying an 'illegal' firearm and get subject to minimum sentencing laws?
With this stamping technology, what happens if I need to change a component in my firearm? Will I be able to do it the old fashioned way and just replace the part myself, or will I have to take it to a repair shop specifically licensed to do the work and then re-register with the police?
The point being, with the extreme penalties surrounding firearms, even simple laws makes people trying to follow the law have to take more care than most would believe. Hell, I've asked some cop friends and they admit that it's hard to be 100% legal.
Re:utter pointlessness (Score:4, Insightful)
Hell, I've asked some cop friends and they admit that it's hard to be 100% legal.
Which is important, in case you become inconvenient.
Re:utter pointlessness (Score:4, Insightful)
Increased cost? Yes... Inconvenience? How, other than a larger cost?
Re:utter pointlessness (Score:4, Insightful)
Increased cost? Yes... Inconvenience? How, other than a larger cost?
But...but... the other gun guys said that microprinting is useless because the first thing a criminal will do is erase the microprinting, so microprinting is useless. But now you're saying that microprinting is bad because criminals will steal guns and innocent gun owners will get blamed for the crime due to the microprinting.
So which is it -- are criminals smart enough to sand the microprinting off a gun before using it, or will they not bother because they use stolen guns? I can think of lots of reasons a smart criminal would erase the microprinting even from a stolen gun - so if he gets caught with the stolen gun, the microprinting doesn't tie him to other crimes with the same gun.
In reality, I think sometimes microprinting will help solve crimes, sometimes it won't. But it seems like such a small expense that it's probably worth it. Since serial numbers are already recorded in gun sales (in some (all?) states), so recording the microprinting serial number during a transaction or when reporting it stolen seems like little additional work. And the gunowner whose gun is found at a scene of a crime will get a call from the police when they trace back the serial number, just like a gunowner whose microprinting is found on shell casings found at the scene.
Re:utter pointlessness (Score:5, Insightful)
Your gun is stolen and used in a crime. The cops come looking for you.
This isn't a bad thing, there's a chance of more forensic evidence from the theft, in addition to the shooting. For example, they might get a print or DNA from the break-in, which leads to an ex-con on the system, which leads to a search, which uncovers the gun (because many lowlifes won't ditch a perfectly good gun), which leads to a conviction. You're inconvenienced, but a murderer gets caught. Still a win for the good guys.
When selling your gun to someone else, add on the cost and time of changing the micro-code registration.
No harder than selling a car. Jesus, shouldn't you take selling a gun as seriously as selling a car?
When the paperwork is lost, and the new owner has his gun stolen and used in a crime, the cops come looking for you, then you finger the buyer, so double the fun and double the inconvenience for twice as many people.
And exactly how often do you think that chain of events will occur in the next thousand years?
When your "helpful" "friend" helps you police your brass at the shooting range and then drops a few casings at his next shooting, he's effectively framed you.
He can already just pick a hair off your shoulder and do that. Without the risk of leaving his own fingerprints and DNA on the casings he picked up to frame you with. (Also without having the rifling on the slug not matching your handgun. You didn't forget about the actual shooting at the crime-scene, did you?)
When the market for old guns explodes and it becomes harder and more expensive to buy one, it both costs money and time.
Implies that the market for new guns crashes. So bargain.
You're just making up crap for the sake of being difficult. People do this all the time and it's stupid. You know why this law is bad? Because it won't work, it's too easy to file off the micro-code. That's it. Bam. You don't need to invent a pile of hysterical nonsense to object to a law. It just makes you look like a stupid old woman.
Re: (Score:3)
You may not consider the appearance of the cops at your door with a search warrant for your house and property that they obtained from one shell casing at a crime scene to be an inconvenience, but I certainly do.
So if your firearm is stolen, report it to the police. You should do this regardless.
Further, the inconvenience of having to police every round you fire anywhere just to prevent being framed with a discarded bit of brass is a serious inconvenience.
Two things here. First, you're paranoid. Second, you should always pick up your brass.
And needing to complete yet another set of paperwork to transfer a gun to someone else
No different then transferring vehicle ownership - not a big deal.
Collect Yer Brass! (Score:3)
All responsible gun owners do.
Lame Tech (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lame Tech (Score:5, Insightful)
Also get some hair or other random DNA from the floor of the local barber shop, nail parlor, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
It would, however, be enough to make some random innocent person's day REALLY shitty when the police bust in their door at 1:30 am in full riot gear, and then shoot their dog too.
Re: (Score:3)
However, it would make it very easy for the victim here to prove that the police shot their dog. See, silver lining!
Re: (Score:3)
mean that suddenly, police departments won't bother to collect other evidence, and further won't do any follow-up on the microstamping evidence except assuming guilt of the gun owner it points to.
If you don't think that the presence of a casing with your registered code at a murder won't result in an immediate search warrant to locate the weapon in your possession, you haven't been paying attention. Whether or not you are guilty, having the cops come turn your home and place of work upside down looking for your gun is a serious problem for most folks. Even if you voluntarily hand the gun over for inspection, they've got the warrant, they might as well look around for other guns you haven't register
Used gun market and revolver sales will sky rocket (Score:4, Insightful)
Apparently the people making laws are about as proficient with firearms as they are with technology.
overheard at an Italian restaurant (Score:5, Funny)
"Ok Vito, we're going to need you to ice Ricky Peanuts tonight. Shoot him full of holes, then chop up the body and feed it to your pet alligator. Then grind up the alligator, dissolve him in acid, and turn it into smoothies at your ice cream parlor. Then burn down the ice cream parlor with everyone inside. And don't forget to file the code off your gun."
"File off the code? Madone! That's illegal!"
Guns (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with guns is the technology to kill people is very primitive and simple. We've been killing each other since before we could read and write. Guns are nothing more than a device for initiating a controlled rapid exothermic reaction resulting in a propulsive force to a projectile.
Most people have the necessary tools and items required to manufacture a simple gun in their garages, propellant included. So even in the ideal case where criminals don't just file off the microprinting in a few well-placed strokes, and in this magical world every bullet fired has a 1:1 parity with a registered gun owner, the problem isn't any closer to being solved... there's still hundreds of other ways to murder people, either with guns, or gun-like devices, or even without guns. Hell, the government routinely says tazers, water cannons, and microwaving protesters is "safe", yet people still somehow wind up just as dead.
Expecting violent criminals to care about legislation like this is like expecting a terrorist to care his car bomb is taking up two parking spaces.
Re:Guns (Score:5, Informative)
Google "zip gun".
Really... Go do it. Now.
You can fire a
LOL (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, microstamp it. Costs to manufacturer to tool up to do that, thousands.
2 dollar file at the local Ace hardware store, file it down...defeat it, PRICELESS.
Hey idiots...instead of making NEW laws for firearms, how about ENFORCING the current ones?
IE: Fast & Furious?
What, you mean it isn't 100% perfect?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
It massively fails the cost benefit analysis test. Is that good enough for you?
It imposes significant costs and annoyances on every single legal gun owner, while only catching a few of the dumb criminals.
Re: (Score:3)
A) It's easily beat. It isn't going to do a damn thing to harm criminals, its just going to make legitimate citizens have to pay even more for ammo and firearms.
B) It makes it trivial to frame someone for a crime. Find some used brass at any gun range, drop them off at the shooting scene.
C) It creates even more tracking and tracing for gun owners. Just like the census was used to round up people of Japanese decent to put them in concentration camps, these
Unreliable and defeatable (Score:5, Informative)
Not only can you just file/sandpaper the tip of the firing pin, I personally know a forensic scientist who did a Master's Thesis on this very subject, and in his research and testing, he found that the serial numbers wear down enough in just a few shots that they aren't readable on the primers any more. Combine that with widely varying degrees of hardness of different brands of primers (some take a good print, some don't), and it's a totally unreliable way identify which firearm shot the round. The people who push this technology in the political arena hope to make tons of money on it (they own the businesses that make the products). The tech sounds good in theory, but in practice, it simply doesn't work.
Not surprising (Score:3)
Firing pins hit HARD, they have to to work. Heck the way I test to make sure a firearm is fully operational after a detail strip and reassembly is to put a pencil in the barrel and pull the trigger. The firing pin will launch it out from the force of the hit.
While firing pins are made of tough material, steel usually but you can get them in titanium, I can't imagine micro features will stand up well to repeated impacts like that.
Lawful Citizens = Criminals (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just one more attempt to make law abiding citizens criminals because they exercise a right the government thinks they shouldn't have. Criminals will ignore this law and deface their illegal guns if they have this. However, it will soon become illegal to have your firing pin defaced, and with how much som people legally shoot it will become defaced through use. Once a cop decides he doesn't like you, searches your car without a warrant, finds the gun and suspect its illegal, the law abiding citizen is now a criminal.
This is merely an attempt to make those who legally exercise their second amendment rights criminals.
Gun Control = DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In terms even US citizens can understand, gun control works great here in .au, I have never once seen a gun used or even carried outside a range. I know its hard for you overcompensating types to understand but that is the reality. A quick look at the stats for gun deaths in both countries makes this starkly clear. Americans always seem to be on violent revenge fantasy trips, and easy access to guns makes this common.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Fatality rates (Score:5, Informative)
In 2009 there were 33,808 deaths in the US from auto accidents.
In 2009 there were 31,347 deaths in the US from firearms.
The firearm deaths include
homicides 11,493
suicides 18,735
legal intervention 333 (gotta love the CDC's terminology).
unintentional 554 (I guess that's CDC speak for accidental).
I couldn't find data on the leading cause of fatal car accidents, but
for all car accidents the leading causes are:
1. Distracted Driving
2. Speeding
3. Drunk Driving
4. Reckless Driving
5. Rain
6. Running Red Lights
7. Running Stop Signs (seems like 6&7 should be combined)
8. Teenage Drivers
The list goes on.
Number one cause of distracted driving?
Nope.
Kids in the car.
Re: (Score:3)
This will be the problem that the next law will address.
Probably, they will ban the selling of used brass and prohibit its ownership because it renders the current law ineffective. You heard it here first.
Re: (Score:3)
Almost certainly not. However, there are plenty of convicted felons that do attempt to purchase firearms from legitimate dealers/FFLs, which itself is a federal felony. The dealer has the completed Form 4473 as proof of the attempt, and these people are trivially easy to identify in most cases. Even so, there is almost no effort made to prosecute them. What exactly are more laws supposed to accomplish if they're not enfor
Re:Don't see the problem (Score:4, Informative)
If you're not planning on using the gun illegally, then why would you care if the gun has identifiable parts/imprintings/etc.? I'm all for allowing people to legally own guns. I'm not all for allowing people to try and hide traces of their usage.
Because when the firing pin has to be replaced (and it will, because it's a consumable item), you go from a $2 part to a $150 part. Furthermore, any criminal is going to file the number off the firing pin almost immediately. The law will do nothing to prosecute crime while at the same time making firearm ownership prohibitively expensive. It's yet another in a long line of back-alley legislation to infringe the rights of law-abiding gun owners.
Re: (Score:3)
> figure out who registered the gun it was fired from
There's your first problem. There isn't a registry of guns. Some states have them. Others don't.
For example, Virginia doesn't have a registry of guns. When the police find a gun they reference it to the manufacturer and that traces back to the FFL dealer that sold the gun. The dealer then provides law enforcement with the identity of the person who purchased it. Now, after that it gets all fuzzy. In Virginia's case, private sales do not have any paper