Pull Out the Six-ShooterThe California Legislature is considering a new bill that would require pistol makers to design new firing pins that would mar

The California Legislature is considering a new bill that would require pistol makers to design new firing pins that would mark shell casings in a manner unique to the pistol that fired them. The aim of the bill is to assist police detectives in tracking down the perpetrators of “Gun Crimes.” At first glance, this bill seems rather innocuous and even somewhat technologically interesting. The idea of etching the firing pin of a pistol so that it not only leaves a unique mark, but one that can specifically identify the gun is rather remarkable. However, if you think about it a little bit, you quickly realize that it’s nothing more than another step towards eliminating one of our guaranteed Constitutional rights. In fact, you’ll also realize that the bill won’t really help law enforcement officers much at all either. It might even help the criminals.

The theory is that when the police arrive at the scene of a shooting and find bullet casings lying around, they can pick them up, take a look at the mark and immediately go pick up the perpetrator. The reality of the matter is that people aren’t that stupid. Shell casings can already be used to track down criminals. They can already be tied directly to firearms, and they often have fingerprints on them. The shooters who are leaving shell casings lying around now are people who know the gun can’t be traced to them because it’s stolen or unregistered, and who have wiped their fingerprints from the shell casings. If the gun doesn’t belong to them then it won’t matter if it leaves special marks on the shell casings. It won’t be traced to them, so who cares? The police are already easily catching the few people who aren’t taking the previous precautions. So what is the bill really going to do? Nothing except to move the gun-ban lobby one step closer to eliminate the average law abiding citizen’s right to bear arms.

Even if there were a great deal of people out there legally obtaining pistols and then littering the city streets with shell casing from their own guns, this wouldn’t stop anything. They’d just start buying and using revolvers. That way they can take their brass with them when they go and leave nothing for the police. Like I said earlier, the stupid criminals are already being caught. This bill does nothing to hinder the smarter criminals; in fact it might even help them.

If you want to send the police off on a wild goose chase every time you start shooting at people, all you need to do is take a trip to the local firing range and pick up some spent shell casings. Then after you shoot the place up, you just toss some of your firing range brass around for the police to pick up. Next thing you know, the police are interviewing Joe Citizen out in suburbs about why he was shooting drug dealers on street corners downtown. This bill’s not going to help the police much if they are spending all their time interviewing the many members of the county gun club.

Firearm legislation does nothing but hinder law-abiding citizens. Criminals will continue to commit crimes regardless of the law. That’s why they are criminals. The only way to reduce crime is to make it less appealing.

Date Added: 24-04-2006