Here’s more duplicity by Ammunition Coding Systems that was brought up on Cam Edward’s show last night.  See the patent for Ammunition Coding, filed by Russell H. Ford:
In general, no governmental agency would be required to supervise the test cartridge firing, and to retain the information in a central repository, or data base. Instead, ammunition having an identifying mark could be conveniently tracked through a chain of supply in a manner similar to ordinary inventory tracking, so that the costs associated with tracking the ownership of the marked ammunition are widely distributed. Furthermore, since the burden associated with identification of the firearm is effectively shifted from the firearm to the ammunition, the identity of a firearm owner or user may be determined without regard to the age of the firearm, so that all firearms currently in existence could be traced.
Emphasis mine. That last part seems like a pot shot at the microstamping technology, which carries a chief weakness of not applying older firearms. But this isn’t the duplicity; that is in the first part I bolded. Take a look at their model legislation (PDF) that’s being pushed on their web site:
Section 4. Authority to establish an Ammunition Coding Database.
1. [AGENCY] shall be responsible for establishing and maintaining an Ammunition Coding Database (ACD) containing the following information
What kind of information will this database contain?
a. The date of the transaction.
b. The name of the transferee.
c. The purchaser’s driver’s license number or other government issued identification card number
d. The date of birth of the purchaser.
e. The unique identifier of all handgun ammunition or bullets transferred.
f. All other information prescribed by [AGENCY].
It’s basically complete ammunition regulation, down to the last bullet. No more handloading either, the model legislation outlaws it:
No later than January 1, 2011, all non-coded ammunition for the calibers listed in this chapter, whether owned by private citizens or retail outlets, must be disposed.
You can have my reloading press when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
This is just crazy.
yeah I won’t give up my presses, and I won’t get a licence or an encoding machine.
So all that spent brass at the range has to be disposed of. Let’s get the enviro’s on our side by pointing out how wasteful and Earth-unfriendly this is. It bans recycling.
As crazy as this is, we’d better treat is seriously. I can guarantee you our opponents are serious about it.
I’ll keep repeating it – this has nothing to do with public safety and is only an attempt to put manufacturers out of business.
And how, exactly, are they going to regulate hand loading? Will it be illegal to sell lead now? Will wheel weights be contraband?
The workability of this system is what scares me the most. It can’t be done. BILLIONS of rounds a year. Each one having to be encoded, recorded, logged, and checked. Damn near impossible to stay within the law, which again is the goal.
We need to expose this charade. Are there any Republicans involved in this? I’m sure the MSM would jump on the story then.
Technically the model law doesn’t outlaw reloaded ammo. It “merely” requires that you purchase one of the low-end ($300K) laser engraving machines.
I’m wondering what they think are the “12 common handgun and assault weapon calibers“. Just off the top of my head I can come up with the following 18:
.22LR
.25ACP
.380
9mm Makarov
9mm Luger
.38 Special
.38 Super
.357 Magnum
.357 Sig
.40 S&W
10mm
.41 Magnum
.44 Magnum
.44 Special
.45 ACP
7.62×39
.223
5.56 Nato
And that only hints at Cowboy Action calibers and the large magnums.
If such a stupid law is passed expect handloader to define their own calibers such “Joe’s .357 Short Magnum” which is a mm shorter than .357 Magnum but, of course, can still be fired in a .357 Magnum gun.
My take on it is that the problems with this scheme are so great that the legislators will get the message and not implement it. Still we need to put a stop to it. And we need to be on the offensive.
We need to go on the offensive. We need to get friendly legislators to introduce bills making it a felony to track ammo, or something like that. We need to have people introducing the craziest legislation. That’s what they do. They throw out crazy stupid legislation ideas that make not-quite-so-crazy legislation seem, well, not so crazy. Maybe, we can do the same.
and don’t overlook the very strong probability, assuming it were to pass on the federal level, that the REAL ID would be required…how many states have already refused to take part? No national ID, no ammo.
Of course, I can also see some whipping up some fake IDs of political enemies and offing a few people.
A criminal is not entirely stupid as to use ammo that he knows can be traced when he can buy (or steal) non-traceable ammo on the black market. This is bought and paid for government at it’s lowest.