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."
Luckily I reload all shots myself that I use in crimes.
Additionally I use revolver or if I use a pistol, I use a brass catcher.
So dear murderers, get replacement firing pins now, before you have to order them in Canada.
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, a well-planned criminal just needs to hang out at the local shooting range and collect someone else's brass casings before they commit a crime. After they commit their crime, they collect their own shells, and toss out the other person's shells. When police show up, there is a positive ID on the discarded casings, because of the #. This was a good idea, but it is so very easily spoofed because it's non-deterministic and can put innocent people at risk. I'd pass...
Apparently the people making laws are about as proficient with firearms as they are with technology.
"Ok Vito, we're going to need you to ice Ricky Peanuts tonight. Shoot him full of holes, then chop up the body and feed it to your pet alligator. Then grind up the alligator, dissolve him in acid, and turn it into smoothies at your ice cream parlor. Then burn down the ice cream parlor with everyone inside. And don't forget to file the code off your gun."
"File off the code? Madone! That's illegal!"
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
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
Ok, microstamp it. Costs to manufacturer to tool up to do that, thousands.
2 dollar file at the local Ace hardware store, file it down...defeat it, PRICELESS.
Hey idiots...instead of making NEW laws for firearms, how about ENFORCING the current ones?
IE: Fast & Furious?
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.
Not only can you just file/sandpaper the tip of the firing pin, I personally know a forensic scientist who did a Master's Thesis on this very subject, and in his research and testing, he found that the serial numbers wear down enough in just a few shots that they aren't readable on the primers any more. Combine that with widely varying degrees of hardness of different brands of primers (some take a good print, some don't), and it's a totally unreliable way identify which firearm shot the round. The people who push this technology in the political arena hope to make tons of money on it (they own the businesses that make the products). The tech sounds good in theory, but in practice, it simply doesn't work.
This is just one more attempt to make law abiding citizens criminals because they exercise a right the government thinks they shouldn't have. Criminals will ignore this law and deface their illegal guns if they have this. However, it will soon become illegal to have your firing pin defaced, and with how much som people legally shoot it will become defaced through use. Once a cop decides he doesn't like you, searches your car without a warrant, finds the gun and suspect its illegal, the law abiding citizen is now a criminal.
This is merely an attempt to make those who legally exercise their second amendment rights criminals.
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.
As the firing pin hits the primer, and that you don't reuse, you get a new primer to put in the case. As I said in another post a more real problem would just be people getting new firing pins. You can order them online and people do. Some AR enthusiasts like to keep an extra firing pin and bolt with them since those are the most likely things to go wrong. If they do, swap them out, go back to plinking.
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.
paintball
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.
Because when the firing pin has to be replaced (and it will, because it's a consumable item), you go from a $2 part to a $150 part. Furthermore, any criminal is going to file the number off the firing pin almost immediately. The law will do nothing to prosecute crime while at the same time making firearm ownership prohibitively expensive. It's yet another in a long line of back-alley legislation to infringe the rights of law-abiding gun owners.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
In 2009 there were 33,808 deaths in the US from auto accidents.
In 2009 there were 31,347 deaths in the US from firearms.
The firearm deaths include
homicides 11,493
suicides 18,735
legal intervention 333 (gotta love the CDC's terminology).
unintentional 554 (I guess that's CDC speak for accidental).
I couldn't find data on the leading cause of fatal car accidents, but
for all car accidents the leading causes are:
1. Distracted Driving
2. Speeding
3. Drunk Driving
4. Reckless Driving
5. Rain
6. Running Red Lights
7. Running Stop Signs (seems like 6&7 should be combined)
8. Teenage Drivers
The list goes on.
Number one cause of distracted driving?
Nope.
Kids in the car.
more cowbell
It's always the law-abiding citizen that ends up killing their ex-wife.
The focus of us liberal gun-grabbers is to remove guns from the law-abiding citizen, BEFORE they can kill their ex-wives.
I'm not an American, either, but the US Constitution is written in plain English and accessible to anyone who wants to read it.
Anyway, the standing interpretation - which is what ultimately matters - is as follows (per DC v Heller):
"Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. "
However:
"The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition—in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute—would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional."
So e.g. bans on fully automatic firearms (and Predator drones and motorcycle mounted chainguns) are reasonable, while bans on widely used self-defense, hunting or sporting guns, such as your typical handgun or semi-auto rifle, are not.