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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."
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.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
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.
Please state the primary intended use for a gun. Don't forgot about all the research that went into developing armor piercing bullets and bullets that liquify flesh and fragment to cause as much damage as possible. Neither of those technologies have anything to do with sport. That last thing you want in that deer you just shot is 500 tiny fragments of lead. Deer also don't hide behind armor.
Ok most of the frangible bullets are for self defense, Not for offensive actions like a criminal would do. You would never use a self defense round in a sport setting. Your looking to punch holes in paper or to knock over a steel plate or even those deadly bowling pins. You would not use a self defense round on wild game. Number one reason is the lack of penetration into the heart lung area. remember that wild animals such as deer while even though small they have a thick hide that we humans dont. For me the primary use of ANY weapon (pistols, long rifles, shotguns, bow & arrows, knives, swords, spears, or even a pellet gun is self defense. Second is for pest control (ok almost the same as the first reason). Thirdly is for killing for food. Having a pistol isnt just for sport even though as a former PPC and IPSC shooter and a LEO I did a lot of sport shooting.
"Remember, politicians and diapers should be changed often and for the same reason."
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.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
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"?
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.
Infuriate left and right
I agree with the first part, but not with the second!
The Tea Party's biggest agenda *is* "freedom", gun control and handing America over to the corporations.
After all, who is behind the Tea Party, the NRA and other right wing conservative, but the big corps' themselves? No, they are not seeking freedom, they are seeking enslavement, not knowing what freedom actually means...
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
If he hadn't reported them stolen, he probably would have had a LOT of explaining to do.
Of course he would, and rightly so. Also, the marks might allow owners of stolen guns to get them back, at least if they weren't used in a crime and being held as evidence.
Before a standing army can rule the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.
As a European, it strikes me that this still holds true : our governments don't fear us, because we can't fight back, so they do whatever they like.
You're full of shite.
Barely 2 months before the VPI shootings, the VA legislature was on the verge of making CCL (concealed carry licenses) valid for college campuses. The regents of VPI pressed the legislature to table changes to VA CCL laws. In another instance of liberal stupidity, the perpetrator of the VPI slayings was in and out of mental health treatment for many months before that tragic event. The liberals in charge of VPI Health Services did not want to disadvantage a student from future firearms ownership by registering this student with the Virginia State Police as being mentally unstable. If Cho had been registered thus, the Instant Background Check would have flagged him as legally unable to purchase a firearm. Liberalism, especially liberalism that strips citizens of their rights, was at the core of the VPI shootings and directly attributable to that crime.
BTW, CCL holders go through a similar vetting process that the private VPI security go through. I would trust a CCL-holder before I would trust a Law Enforcement Officer -- demographically, there is a far larger portion of LEOs that commit crimes than CCL-holders.
FWIW, when I went to VPI back in the early 1970's students were allowed to bring their legally owned firearms on campus, to be stored with their Resident Advisors. There is some great white-tail deer and black bear hunting in the rural areas around VPI. VPI used to have a fairly competent target shooting team, as well as ROTC.
"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
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.