Slashdot Mirror
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."
File the firing pin? Good luck getting the gun to fire reliably after that. Buy the gun outside CA? Sure, but that's why there's a push for all the states to have firing pin tech. Laser engrave some other dudes ID on it? Man, if you can do that, you wouldn't be need to kill dudes with a gun--you'd laser them. A firing pin party? Sure. Let's give your pin to someone else and be responsible for whatever they did. "How did they end up with your firing pin?" "Uh, I gave it to him." "Why?" "Second Amendment rights, uh." "Let's go down to the station to clear this up..."
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
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.