Published January 31st, 2008 by Syd
http://www.snubnose.info/wordpress/news/a-new-trojan-horse-encoded-ammunition/

They are popping up like noxious weeds in unlikely places, most notably in the legislatures of states that are otherwise gun-friendly - "encoded ammunition" bills. "Encoded ammunition" is code for requiring manufacturers to put serial numbers or similar individualized identification on each round of ammunition produced. Given the coordinated way in which these bills are appearing, I sense that the forces of gun control feel that they have struck upon another way to harass manufacturers and gun owners with another piece of stupid legislation that would do nothing to reduce crime but would tend to drive up the price of ammunition by slowing the manufacturing process, thereby reducing supply, and burdening the manufacturers with the expense of costly machinery to apply the "code" to each projectile. Also, record-keeping technology for all of this individualized ammunition would require massive expenditures in IT to develop the databases and search systems to keep track of the new "codes." Private manufacture of ammunition might well become illegal if reloaders do not have the equipment to "code" their reloads. Further, if manufacturers are unable to comply with the preposterous demands of these new bills, they could result in a de facto ammunition ban.

This spate of new bills feels like a coordinated effort because of its sudden appearance in several state legislatures at the same time:

Cogito Ergo Geek is on top of the story in Mississippi, Illinois, and Indiana. Armed and Safe also has an analysis of the Illinois versions of the bill. The War on Guns covers the Tennessee version of this bill. A similar bill has been introduced in the Maryland legislature as HB0517. The Maryland bill also includes a $.05 per round tax. Ammunition encoding has been introduced in Massachusetts to be inserted into their "microstamping" bill. It kind of looks like a pattern to me.

The implications of this nonsense are staggering when you think about it. Every time you buy a box of ammo, your purchase will be recorded in a database somewhere. Ammo prices will go through the roof. You will have to forfeit all of your non-encoded ammunition or face prosecution. Reloading will become illegal.

The NRA provides a good run-down of the implications of the Maryland bill, including the following:

Reasons to Strenuously Oppose This Legislation

• People would be required to forfeit all personally-owned non-encoded ammunition. After a certain date, it would be illegal to possess non-encoded ammunition. Gun owners possess hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition for target shooting, hunting and personal protection. Consider that American manufacturers produce 8 billion rounds each year.
  Reloading (re-using cartridge cases multiple times) would be abolished. There would be no way to correspond serial numbers on cartridge cases, and different sets and quantities of bullets.
• People would be required to separately register every box of "encoded ammunition." This information would be supplied to the police. Most states do not even require registration of guns. Each box of ammunition would have a unique serial number, thus a separate registration.
• Private citizens would have to maintain records, if they sold ammunition to anyone, including family members or friends.
  The cost of ammunition would soar, for police and private citizens alike. The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturing Institute estimates it would take three weeks to produce ammunition currently produced in a single day. For reason of cost, manufacturers would produce only ultra-expensive encoded ammunition, which police would have to buy, just like everyone else.
• A tax of five cents a round would be imposed on private citizens, not only upon initial sale, but every time the ammunition changes hands thereafter.
• Shotgun ammunition cannot be engraved. Shotgun pellets are too small to be individually engraved. Shotgun cartridge cases are made of plastic, which would be difficult to engrave.
• Criminals could beat the system. A large percentage of criminals' ammunition (and guns) is stolen. Criminals could also collect ammunition cases from shooting ranges, and reload them with molten lead bullets made without serial numbers.
  Congress eliminated a similar requirement in the 1980s, because there was no law enforcement benefit. Federal law had required purchasers of handgun ammunition to sign a ledger, but Congress repealed that requirement in 1983 (.22 rimfire) and 1986 (center-fire handguns), because it burdened purchasers, vendors and police, with no law enforcement benefit.

This appears to me to be a concerted effort to legislate a back-door ammunition ban. Versions of these bills will undoubtedly be submitted to other state legislatures, and we need to be on the lookout for them.

These bills are typical of the gun-grabber strategy. They know they can't win if they are honest about their agenda so they practice "theft by deception" with legislation that purports to be about crime control and "safety". These kinds of laws do nothing to reduce crime or improve the safety of anyone except criminals, but they do make it much more difficult for law-abiding gun owners to exercise their civil rights. That is the real agenda.