Microstamping: Not Your Father's Second Amendment

PROLOGUE:
From February through July (with updates into December) 2008, we ran a series of articles on "Microstamping", as exemplified by Todd Lizotte's "Pie In The Sky" scheme to offer this unproven technology to  ... well, essentially, to states who wanted to so impede the ability for citizens to purchase firearms at an affordable price.  This series includes a Q&A email interview with the progenitor of the 'technology'; Todd Lizotte

(You can read the entire series here; unfortunately it is in reverse order by date, so the last is first.)

Recently, California decided to "Bite the Bullet".  (In this case .. to byte the casing, or the primer.)  In 2007. the California Assembly passed a law which required that all new firearms purchased in California "microstamp" unique data on the primer (via the firing pin) or on the face of the cartridge case (via the breech block) to identify the gun(s) which fired the bullet.

Never mind that the firing pin may be replaced by a generic model without the 'microstamping', or the slide; or that a casing which has been fired by many similarly 'microstamped' firearms may have overlapping imprints which preclude accurate identification of firearms similarly equipped.

(Note that while the primer is unique in each firing, firing pins which are legally required to carry the unique identifiers are prone to error; the cost of "replacement firing pins" bearing the same legally required identification is absurdly expensive and is prone to being 'avoided' by simple means.  Firing pins are "consumables", and cheap without microstampings; they may be readily purchased from outside the restrictive state without microstampings.) 

 Also, the casing may have been 'picked up' on the range and may thus carry multiple microstampings .. each of which might overstamp each other, rendering the stampings unreadable.  Also, a criminal will simply pick up his brass at the scene of a crime.  If the firearms is a revolver, the microstamping requirement does not apply.)

NOW: 
The NSSF and SAAMI have co-filed a motion to "prevent enforcement of the state's microstamping law" under the grounds that it's unproven technology, and it doesn't work!
 Read the NSSF press release dated March 31, 2014:

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) and the  Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute (SAAMI) have filed a  motion for a preliminary injunction  ...
,,, on behalf of their members  against the State of California in Fresno Superior Court to prevent enforcement  of the state’s microstamping law. The state statute enacted in 2007, but not made  effective until May 2013, requires that all semiautomatic handguns sold in the  state not already on the California approved handgun roster incorporate unproven  and unreliable microstamping technology.Under this law, firearms  manufacturers would have to micro laser-engrave a gun’s make, model and serial  number on two distinct parts of each handgun, including the firing pin so that,  in theory, this information would be imprinted on the cartridge casing when the  pistol is fired. 

“There is  no existing microstamping technology that meets the requirement of this ill-considered  law. It is not technologically possible to microstamp two locations in the gun  and have the required information imprint onto the cartridge casing. In  addition, the current state of the technology cannot reliably, consistently and  legibly imprint on the cartridge primer the required identifying information  from the tip of the firing pin, the only possible location where it is possible  to micro-laser engrave the information, said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF senior  vice president and general counsel.

We have been saying this for over six years.  Although the criticisms we have published have been well received by readers, and have been the subject of links and references by other Gun Bloggers, the subject has been essentially ignored by both politicians and gun-rights agencies.



It seems amazing that even though the law was passed in 2007, and became effective in 2013, it still took another year (until, one supposes, it seemed, California was willing to just enact the bill and wait until legal problems actually became obvious) that Someone With Authority publicized the problem.

Also, it's amazing that after six years, the 'technology' espoused by Mr. Lizotte has not been improved.

The logical assumption is that the technology still does not exist; it has never been available, and the whole charade is a cash cow for Mr. Lizotte and a viable talking point for states which are willing to take any measures, no matter how ill-conceived and poorly supported by existing technology, to make it more difficult for honest citizens to acquire otherwise-legal firearms.

This, and other measures, have long been tools which the California (and New York, et al) legislatures to enforce draconian gun laws.  MANY firearms manufacturers have already declined to sell to gun stores in California, because of the illogical and restrictive laws these states have enacted  (EG: "The Destructive Drop-Test); which only means that the Gun-Grabbers in California have been successful in their nefarious schemes.

We're glad that NSSF and SAAMI have finally taken this step to declare state legislative actions unconstitutional.

Under the guise of "public safety", California and New York and other states have long evoked the chimera of "Common Sense Gun Laws" to present barriers to the purchase of new, otherwise legal firearms by honest, law-abiding citizens.  It is ironic that the citizens of a Free State would continue electing legislatures which are inimical to the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

What part of "shall not infringe" is not obvious?  Any legal loophole which meets the minimal requirements ... no matter how bizarre ... is acceptable.  There is no limit to the length which an arrogant politician will will go to in order to subvert the Second Amendment.

We wonder how well they fare when imposing restrictions on the First Amendment?