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Blocking Gun Laws With Patents
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."
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.
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?).
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.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Well hell, can't use that then. We all know that criminals are all well planned geniuses that think of every contingency and will counter every forensic method used to find them. I mean, seriously, what are they thinking.
In terms most /. readers can understand, Gun control has very similar problems to DRM. It solves a minute percentage of the problem, affects almost none of the people it was intended to (criminals/pirates) and serves only to inconvenience the law abiding citizen. Passing gun control legislation has a nice "feel good" factor, ie "Do it for the children!", but in fact does squat to actually diminish any gun related crime at all. I give you the infamous "Crime Bill" passed in the 90's as exhibit A.
(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.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
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?
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"?
Harassment is probably part of it -- of not only gun owners, but gun manufacturers. 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. 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. It's progress, and you know what they say about boiling frogs. Also, never far from the thoughts of any politician is the question: "How can I get elected again?" Whether this legislation would actually do any real good (by reducing gun crime, for example), it will strike a lot of people as "reasonable", so that the next time an election rolls around, its supporters can paint their opponents as radicals who were unwilling to support "reasonable" gun control measures. Also, it could earn a nice campaign contribution from the Brady campaign or whoever for being a good gun grabber. One final benefit I can imagine is that it's a way of using state money to waste the resources of anti-gun control groups who have undoubtedly tried to sue this law out of existence.
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.
Actually, they are trying to catch stupid criminals, not ALL criminals.
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.
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.
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.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
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.
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.