While Sacramento is gloating about their ammo sale tracking program:
Of the 74 people who purchased ammunition and were prohibited from having guns, 62 had felony convictions, 11 were second strikers and five were gang members, police said.
Some questions the media should be asking, but won’t:
- What is the nature of the offenses the 74 prohibited people were accused of, and how long ago were the convictions? There are a lot of people out there who plead to crap years ago, having no idea what they plead to were felonies. Many of these are not violent crimes.  Like swapping dash boards on a car without swapping VINs.
- What was the nature of the five gang members convictions, how were they determined to be gang members, and how long ago were the convictions?
- What does this program cost, and would public safety be better protected if the resources required to administer this program were spent on traditional policing, hiring more officers, and stepping up patrols of high crime areas. I mean, if you nailed a dozen violent felons in this total, what did it cost vs. traditional law enforcement?
- The police found 74 people, how many people in total were entered into the system? How many people were investigated who committed no crime?
These are obviously the kinds of laws the Brady’s find reasonable, but I go through thousands of rounds of ammunition a year. I have to buy in bulk, often in quantities that I can only find online. Take this state wide, it will destroy competitive shooters, many of whom are already giving up under the weight of high ammo prices. But don’t expect the Brady Campaign or others who push for these laws to give a crap about that. Ammunition control is even more ridiculous than gun control. Criminals go through precious little ammo, since they do not generally practice. Lawful shooters go through thousands, and top competitiors tens of thousands of rounds a year. It seems foolish to expend a lot of time, money, and police resources to catch a few dozen people who probably, in all honesty, aren’t a serious threat to public safety.
I love the commenter who says “I HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE!” Think she’d feel the same way if they wanted to put a GPS in her car to see if she speeds on the freeway? After all the background checks gun owners go through, her statement could as easily read “I have nothing LEFT to hide.”
I have a great idea to keep felons from getting their hands on guns – KEEP THEM IN JAIL! Oops, wait, the poor liberals get all weepy when they see those poor sods sitting in a cell. Gee, he said he was sorry. He even cried! Surely it’s inhumane to make him stay in jail after he apologized.
I shouldn’t be surprised at the illogical thinking so many exhibit. After all, half the population is dumber than average – by definition.
As we all saw here on this blog yesterday, If guns are getting stolen in bulk from shipping companies like FedEX, and then being sold on the streets, I’m sure the same exact thing will start happening to ammunition being shipped to stores in California sooner or later, if it isn’t happening already.
Furthermore, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for just one unscrupulous yet savvy individual to handload a couple hundreds rounds of ammunition in just one weekend, and then go trade them for drugs or cash with a gang member.
Meanwhile, the law-abiding competitive shooters in California will be the only ones who get shafted by this do-gooder and feel-good legislation.
Here’s another question the media won’t ask, but really should:
Of the the 74 prohibited people, how many are illegally in this country?
After all, California is flooded with illegal aliens, especially with their two big sanctuary cities, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The more important point that needs to be made about this is that it was more or less the law nationally beginning with GCA (1968) and continuing until repealed by FOPA (1986), and the data point that is the here-and-now Sacramento experience is statistical noise compared to almost two decades worth of unmitigated uselessness of these programs as crime-fighting tools at the federal level.
And, yes, it should be mentioned that Sacramento is flagrantly violating California firearms pre-emption laws with this crap.
Sebastian: to the best of my knowledge, there is no general law criminalizing the innocent act of “swapping dash boards on a car without swapping VINs.” The law to which you link merely criminalizes doing so “with the intent to conceal or misrepresent the identity or prevent the identification of a motor vehicle or motor vehicle part,” i.e., to “clone” the vehicle. This is no small matter; it’s basically the automotive equivalent of filing a serial number off a firearm and grafting on another in its place. If you believe the guy’s sob story, the problem is with a dunce pleading guilty to a crime he did not commit (or perhaps with a judge failing to adequately instruct him as to what he was actually pleading guilty to), and not with the law itself. Then again, for all you or I know the guy may be guilty as sin and is just making excuses after the fact.
BC: I’m not sure the Sacto law violates preemption. California’s preemption law explicitly forbids local governments to require licenses for gun ownership, and implicitly (as decided in court case after court case after court case involving San Francisco, San Francisco and San Francisco) forbids them to prohibit guns outright. But it doesn’t bar all other forms of POS regulation. For example, West Hollywood was allowed to prohibit sales (but not private possession) of “junk guns” until the state passed a “junk gun” law of its own (which did preempt local ordinances such as WeHo’s, but only on the matter of “junk” guns).
Xrlq:
I understand why it’s a crime. And based on my dealings with him, I believe it’s likely he was a dunce. I might be wrong in this. Nonetheless, should it be a felony?
Actually, ammo control is a lot more doable than gun control. If no new guns were made, those already in cirulation would last about 200 years. The ammo supply in gun owners’ hands is only about 4 years. Find a way to stop new ammo manufacture, and we have expensive and awkward clubs.
Sebastian: absolutely. Vehicle cloning is just as serious as gun masking/cloning, and for the same reason. It’s a common tactic for auto theft rings, why would anyone else want to do it?