Ammunition Accountability Act

Great Debates
121

A stupid argument. How many people rob banks with a maul?

If guns were to suddenly disappear many crimes wouldn’t happen because people are afraid of getting beat up.

That said, I’m for private gun ownership, and tracking bullets is a fine idea. Everyone seems to think that criminals are way more organized than they are. Newsflash: Criminals leave fingerprints, blood, semen and shoeprints all the time. All the fucking time. If you honestly think any but a very small segment of the criminal population will hand load or use pre-tagged bullets they’ve saved you’re insane.

122

Backyard swimming pools kill more kids than guns do. From 2000 to 2005, 4993 children died of accidental drownings - many in backyard pools. In that same period of time 412 were unintentionally killed with firearms.

Given that there are over 100 times more guns in the U.S. than there are backyard swimming pools, and yet swimming pools kill up to 10 times more kids, that means little Timmy is 1000 times more likely to wind up dead if you send him to play at the neighbors with the nice pool than if you let him go play at the house with the gun nut for a dad and a rack of rifles on the wall.

Statistically speaking, of course.

One clue might be that they are being discussed in a thread about gun ownership.

123

Too bad they don’t have some sort of regulationson swimming pools.

124

Really, are there that many shooting in a year where the cops have no idea who did it and the crime goes unsolved? Seems like it’s usually a family member, or that it doesn’t take Scotland Yard to figure it out. Of those unsolved shootings, I’d say most of them are going to be carried out by people who know what they are doing, at least to some degree. These people will steal ammo or use old ammo or reload it or what have you to get “clean” ammo. Or just use a shotgun.

It’s too expensive to maybe solve a handful more crimes a year (if it even worked) when that money could be better spent on other more effective crime fighting measures.

125

I think I get it-gun and/or ammo regulations don’t work because they don’t stop crimes committed with guns.
Using that logic, should rape laws be abolished?

126

The comparison would be more valid if it was proposed that every man be DNA tested and added to a data base (at his own expense) so that he might more easily be identified in case he commits rape.
Nobody has proposed repealing any laws in this thread. We oppose the enaction of a new, financially burdensome, law.

127

I’d like to bring a foreign perspective to this, if I may (I usually stay out of US Gun Control threads because of different political views etc).

Why the hell should I, a legitimate shooter in Australia, have to pay a lot extra for US-made ammunition, just to satisfy the State Legislatures of a few places in the US?

What might start at 5c/round “extra cost” suddenly turns into AUD$0.25c/round extra (or more) because of all the bullshit that will be involved in exporting/importing ammo.

I pay damn nearly AUD$1.75 a bullet as it is for US-made .303 hunting ammo; a 25c increase per bullet would be AUD$5 per box. Which would then have GST added on top of that, basically making hunting ammo $2 a bullet for me. How is that fair, that I (and every other law-abiding shooter in Australia) should be penalised because of something we have less than nothing to do with in a country 6,000 miles away?

Also, how about foreign ammunition manufacturers? For “Everyday” centrefire target shooting or general hunting I tend to use Yugoslavian or Czechoslovakian* made ammo. I can’t imagine that Prvi Partizan or Sellier & Bellot or Fiocchi or Norma or Wolf or any of the other European ammo manufacturers are going to start engraving little miniature serial numbers on their projectiles. Then again, they may have to if they want to stay in business.

Is it really fair to expect pretty much every shooter on the planet to have to pay extra just to keep a few US States happy?

And what about musket balls? Almost anyone can buy a modern replica of a pre-1898 firearm in the US. You can literally make your own ammo for those things (cast your own lead balls, mix your own powder if you’re brave/silly). Will Civil War Re-enactors and Western Action Shooters be required to engrave little numbers on their projectiles and keep a log? You see how ridiculous this whole thing is, right?

The whole thing just isn’t practical. And not only is it impractical, it’s expensive, silly, offensive, and would basically be what we in Australia refer to as a “WOFTAM”- a Waste of Fucking Time And Money.

I can’t believe it’s being considered seriously anywhere, to be honest…

*OK, I know it isn’t Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia anymore. You know what I mean.

128

I’m not sure that’s totally fair. There are a lot of people out there looking for a compromise solution. I’ll admit to having travelled a long way myself on gun rights. And my change came about through a friend explaining why things like the AWB didn’t make sense, not by someone shrieking that I was out to take their guns away regardless.

I’m willing to believe that there are many people out there who believe that marking ammunition is neither expensive nor burdensome on gun owners, and that it would be of major benefit to law enforcement. I think they are probably wrong on both counts, but that belief doesn’t per se make them someone who is out to confiscate all guns.

129

As enipla said, this really shows their true goal. Semi-auto rifles of intermediate power with detachable magazines are used in about 1% of all gun crimes, yet are called out by name in the legislation. There’s no such thing as “assault rifle” ammo - the same ammo will fit a bolt action rifle of the same caliber. So they want to (a) completely cut off the imported milsurp market and (b) make life even harder on those of use who dare to own such firearms, and everyone else with a 223 or 308 rifle too.

130

As far as I can tell, just about every law involving guns and/or ammo regulation have been opposed initially for many of the reasons used in this thread.

On a different note, I propose that those who oppose these laws on 2nd Amendment grounds not use arguments involving cost-effectiveness or the uselessness of laws that will not stop gun crime, unless you are willing to state that you would have no objection to laws that would be somewhat effective in slowing down gun violence(violence involving the use of guns, for those who like to play word games). If you are going to use the 2nd Amendment as the basis for your opposition, don’t pretend to be concerned about cost or effectiveness.

131

That’s a bizarre way of looking at it. If there are multiple objections, why not list them?

132

Violence with guns is already illegal. So is violence with knives, broken bottles, sticks, etc.
If an anti ever proposed a law that would actually prevent violence, it would be a watershed moment. So far, I don’t see the exisitence of laws against substances and activities actually preventing anything. All laws can do is punish. Some of them punish after the fact. The kind of laws antis favor punish before the fact and they punish the law-abiding almost exclusively.
When you’ve come up with that magical law that prevents things, get back to me.

133

Because people shouldn’t pretend that cost effectiveness and/or law effectiveness has anything to do with their position, if they are going to fall back on 2nd Amendment arguments if those problems are solved.

134

Why can’t one use all three as argument against stupid legislation? I think this proposal will cost a fortune, be of no usable benefit for law enforcement and will potentially infringe upon my 2nd Amendment affirmed rights.

Strikes one, two and three.

135

Missed the edit window. To add:

That all three are legitimate reasons to oppose this legislation. If it were free, it still has not been proven to be able to make an impact on crime and still would infringe upon the 2nd.

If the law enforcement benefits could be proven, and was free, my argument that it infringes upon my rights is still legit.

136

I’ll agree that ammo accountability *might not *be an easily do-able process, though I haven’t heard any actual evidence to that effect…lots of opinions, but that but I’ve also heard no suggestions from the pro-gun side regarding any steps they would like to take to lessen gun crime. Statistics show that we have a national problem. What are you doing to fix it? I hear a lot of 2nd amendment comments, but many of you sound like you want virtually no control over how guns and ammo are sold, stored, carried, etc. How do you propose we enforce the laws that are in place or punish those who just can’t seem to follow common sense safety rules?

From http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/165476.txt

Older stats, and there’s not much out there to begin with, but this represents the issue I’m concerned with. What do you suggest we do with people whose guns are stolen, but were never adequately locked up to begin with? Should there be a standard for storage? Should they be punished? Do you think they should be held accountable in some way for securing the weapons they have?

137

Yes, let’s punish the victim.
The locked door of my house or car is all the deterrent that I feel should be required. Locking up firearms around children is unrelated to this, by the way.

And it’s possible that no one is proposing further ways to reduce violence with firearms because this thread isn’t about reducing violence committed with firearms. It’s about punishing people who have a hobby you don’t like.

You want a proposal to reduce this problem? Get inner city kids out of gangs and into educational programs where they have a chance to succeed in society. That would solve far more problems per dollar spent than all the gun laws in the country (IMHO).

138

How does it infringe on the 2nd? If you’re still allowed to bear arms, the restrictions put upon that right aren’t hurting you. There’s no guarantee that every citizen can afford guns and ammo. There’s certainly no government official passing out guns to anyone who wants one. You have the right. Not necessarily the ability.

139

That’s more than a little unfair. Most pro gun people and organizations have been very much in favor of strict penalties for those caught using guns in crimes. Support hasn’t been universal, however - while the NRA backed Project Exile in Richmond, other gun rights organizations opposed it.

But generally, the pro-gun rights people tend to want heavy penalties for criminal use of firearms. They just don’t believe, with good reason, that a law criminalizing possession by all will reduce possession by criminals. Much as laws criminalizing gambling have not been successful in keeping organized crime out of organizing illegal gambling.

If I have a self defense weapon in my house, you can believe it is not going to be locked up (unless my son was present). If you can show negligence on the part of the owner, I would say he or she should be liable (at least in a civil way). Problem is, the criminal act of breaking into my house probably supercedes any negligence on my part. I think I have a responsibility to report a theft of a weapon from my house or person as soon as I discover it.

140

Taxing a constitutional right can run afoul of the constitution. It would be unconstitutional, for example, to say that kosher foods should carry a federal tax. There is no guarantee that everyone be able to afford a Bible, for example, but taxing it such that it becomes prohibitively expensive would be constitutionally problematic, unless all other books were equally taxed.