The anti-gun movement in the United States is promoting various forms of ammunition control as a backdoor approach to gun control.
Whether the anti-ammunition proposals take the form of measures mandating the coding of cartridge casings and bullets or the microstamping of ammunition, the effect of such proposals is to make it more difficult and costly to produce and market the ammunition. This in turn would infringe seriously on Americans’ gun rights by making it more difficult and costly for people to obtain ammunition.
Although the gun grabbers argue that the legislation would be an effective means for reducing or preventing violent criminal activity, the fact of the matter is that according to a report last month from the National Research Council, the fundamental assumption underlying forensic firearms identification – that every gun leaves microscopic marks on bullets and cartridge cases that are unique to that weapon and remain the same over repeated firings – has not yet been fully demonstrated scientifically.
The report cautions that the statement commonly made by firearms examiners that “matches†of ballistic evidence identify a particular source gun “to the exclusion of all other firearms†should be avoided. It indicates that currently there is no statistical justification for such a statement, and that it is inconsistent with the element of subjectivity inherent in any firearms examiner’s assessment of such a match.
Since ammunition control bills have been introduced in a number of state legislatures as well as in Congress, it would be a good idea for Point Blank readers to write, email, fax and telephone their state legislators as well as their U.S. Representative and both of their U.S. Senators and let them know that these proposals in reality are anti-gun proposals designed to undermine gun rights of millions of law-abiding Americans. They should be rejected.
