FIRST STEP TOWARD GUN CONTROL

Although unique to California, is this law the first step toward gun control? And since California is a trend setter, will the feds and other states be far behind?

While microstamping, IF IT WORKS, will help the police in solving some shooting crimes, it and the ban on NOT SAFE ENOUGH guns will have little, if any impact on the number of shootings and gun-related deaths in California. These laws will not deter criminals from acquiring the banned guns. All they do is impose restrictions on the law abiding citizen.

Ironically, I had just returned from a gun show at Houston’s cavernous George R. Brown Convention Center when I read Bob Walsh’s piece on the microstamping requirement. Got to the gun show at 10 a.m. and the place was already packed. On display were lots of those guns banned in California. Handgun sales were brisk. Thank God for the Great State of Texas. I pity the law abiding citizens of what Bob calls “the formerly great state of California.”

MICROSTAMPING REQUIREMENT IN 2010-MAYBE
By Bob Walsh

PacoVilla’s Corrections blog
January 2, 2010

One of the most far-reaching pieces of law with regards to firearms will kick in this year, MAYBE. Its the Microstamping requirement. This requires that all new semi-autos approved for sale in the formerly great state of California must stamp each fired shell case with the make, model and serial number of the weapon that fired it. That stamp must appear on two different locations on the fired case. You can thank Arnie [Gov. Schwarzenegger] and the Democrats for this, he signed AB 1471 back in 2007.

As most of you are aware, the state of California designates which guns are "safe enough" to be sold in California. Manufacturers are required to submit multiple samples of each variation of each weapon for destructive testing at their expense. I've you've got a new weapon, produced with a 2", 4" and 6" barrel you have to kick down for EACH barrel length. It gets expensive.

Semi-autos now must have magazine disconnects and a loaded chamber indicator.

In the last three years only nine new models of semi-automatic pistols have been approved for sale in California. Only one was approved in all of 2008.

The inventor of the micro-stamping technology, Todd Lizotte, says he intends to release the patent rights in early 2010.

I am still hearing conflicting information about how this would track. If the weapon actually leaves the make, model and serial number on the case that is one thing. If it uses an index number, then an index would have to be set up and maintained, and would certainly have at least occasional errors. The people pushing this say it would cost about $8 per firing pin. Presumably the breach face would also be engraved. How this would work for replacement firing pins has yet to be determined.

In any event, if you want to get the latest whizbang semi-auto pistol, you may very well be out of luck.

You also may want to purchase at least one spare firing pin for your current semi-autos. NO, there is no plan to apply this law retroactively, yet....... I got mine already.