MicroStamping Going Federal

Caught this in a Google-news autosearch. But took a second to look around and see it's being discussed elsewhere as well.

Looks like the Union of Soviet Socialist California is going to be moving forward with microstamping. And sadly, looks like the blue bloods of the People's Republic of Massachusetts with help from comrades in USSC are going to try and push legislation in the Federal Government.

While California may be the first state to pass the microstamping legislation, Massachusetts and Rhode Island introduced similar legislation this year and the Maryland Police Department is promoting consideration there. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA and Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) intend to introduce legislation to require microstamping on a Federal level.

Great. Hopefully the blue-dogs will stick to their campaign statements and remain on the side of gun rights.

Jeff reminds us of what the consequences of such legislation is:

What’s important to remember is this: If all guns have to stamp a unique code on bullets, that means there has to be a central database of those gun codes — and the gun owners. Sounds like nationwide registration to me.

On balance, I think that this doesn't serve lawful gun owner's interests. The costs are what the anti-gunners want, but those who want to be responsible and capable of defending themselves will be hurt by the costs. And once a gun is stolen or makes it into crime in some other way, how will knowing the original gun owner help solve crime?

Even better, I'm betting on an increase in sales of wheel guns in California.

The legislation, called the Crime Gun Identification Act of 2007, requires that all new models of semiautomatic handgun are microstamped with its make, model and identification number.

I'm still trying to figure out the relevance of the make and model. If this is too work the ID number alone should be enough. The gun registry will have all the rest of the data. Or you could just hand out unique serial number sets that are indicative of the maker and model just like MAC addresses on network cards today.