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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."
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.
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 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.