Ammo serialization has nothing to do with solving crimes
Microstamping is laser engraving a unique, identifying code on the tips of firing pins which will “stamp” that code—letters, numbers, etc—on the primers of fired cases. Some microstamping schemes also demand a second stamp elsewhere on a fired case.
California has always been a leader in unconstitutional, impractical, impossible and stupid anti-liberty/gun legislation, but as Tom Knighton at Bearing Arms notes, Illinois isn’t far behind:
Democrat officials in Illinois have long taken unabashed pride in the abridgement of Second Amendment rights, and their latest attempt at “bullet control” is again making headlines. While to many it may appear to be a new frontier for gun control, it is in fact a recycled gun control scheme that appears shiny and new among the onslaught of gun bans and hardware prohibitions in the states.
Illinois HB4414, the Ammo Registration Act, would require that “all handgun ammunition that is manufactured, imported into the State for sale or personal use, kept for sale, offered or exposed for sale, sold, given, lent, or possessed shall be serialized” by January 1, 2027. Additionally, the bill requires each round of ammunition to be tracked and included in a government registry maintained by the Illinois State Police. Of course, to accommodate and fund this onerous new system, a tax of up to five cents per round would be added to ammunition purchases.
But wouldn’t microstamping and serialization help catch criminals? No. In all my years in police work, I never solved a crime committed with a gun by finding and analyzing a fired case, nor was I aware of anyone who did. Virtually all such crimes are solved by old-fashioned police work consisting mostly of talking to people. The shining stainless steel and glass crime labs with holographic projectors and quantum computers of TV crime dramas don’t exist.
Microstamping has been enjoined by federal courts, not only because it’s unconstitutional and a blatantly obvious attempt to make guns and ammo too expensive, but because it doesn’t work. Serialization fails for the same reasons.
Primer metal and case brass is not of uniform hardness from manufacturer to manufacturer, making consistent imprints chancy at best. Laser engraving on firing pins quickly degrades. It’s easy to file off laser engraving with very little effort, and firing pins can be quickly and cheaply replaced. Mandates for second imprints on cases aren’t technically possible, and if required, would end gun manufacturing, which is the anti-liberty/gun point.
The entire scheme fails if criminals don’t leave any cases behind, or even better, pick up a bunch of fired cases at a range and scatter them around a crime scene, sending police on a wild brass hunt. And that assumes all imprints will be of consistent quality to enable reading them. It also assumes seizing every gun currently in private hands and requiring only newly manufactured microstamping/serialization equipped guns—which can’t and won’t exist, which is again, the point.
Serialization is impossible for another reason: the sheer number of cartridges manufactured in America every year, estimated to be at least 20 billion rounds. thegunzone.com/how-much-ammo-is-produced-in-the-us/ The sheer number of unique numbers, even if only limited to each box of 50 rounds, is astronomical, unlawful registration, and would make the manufacturing of cartridges prohibitively expensive, which is yet again the point. Even if it were possible, it would leave enormous imprints in brass cases that would inevitably damage chambers, and the same problems of wild brass chases remain.
But let’s suppose the Illinois law is passed and upheld by a future, packed Supreme Court. A man is murdered in a Chicago alley and a single brass case is found with a 100,296 digit code, and miracle of miracles, it’s readable! Case solved, right? Wrong.
Police find that round was in a box of fifty sold to Joe Average of 315 Average Street, Average Town, USA a year after the law went into effect. But Joe died two years before the crime, or his house or vehicle were burglarized and the ammo taken. And even if Joe was still around, the police must put him in that alley at that time and a gun in his hand, and Joe was in another state that day and time. Crime solving is not like TV or the movies.
As always, every anti-liberty/gun narrative has nothing to do with “common sense gun safety,” and everything to do with depriving Americans of their ability to overthrow a totalitarian government like one that would impose ammo serialization.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel
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