CCRKBA BLASTS CA LEGISLATION, URGES GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER TO VETOBELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today said legislation passed by the California Legislature to regulate ammunition amounts to "one more boondoggle waiting to happen" and urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto both bills, SB 357 and AB 352, if they reach his desk.
SB 357 would require all ammunition to have serial numbers that are etched into individual bullets, while AB 352 would require all new semiautomatic pistols sold in California beginning in 2007 to be manufactured with a "microstamping" function to identify ejected shell casings. SB 357 would slap a half-cent per bullet tax on purchasers to pay for record-keeping on every bullet made or sold in the state.
"These bills are nothing but more cockamamie gun control schemes that will either drive the cost of pistols and ammunition for law-abiding citizens prohibitively high, or simply drive legitimate pistol and ammunition sales out of California altogether," said CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron. "The result will be the same one way or the other. Law-abiding citizens who have committed no crime are being trampled by lawmakers who lack the backbone to go after real criminals.
"There is no proof that either of these bills, if they become law, would prevent a single crime," Waldron continued. "This is reminiscent of the much-ballyhooed ‘ballistic fingerprinting' effort two years ago by Attorney Gen. Bill Lockyer that was shown by an international expert and an expert in his own Justice Department to not work. Even worse, it reminds me of how the Canadian government passed a gun registration scheme only to find that it had created a fiscal monster that is currently drowning in red ink and political scandal, and has not been shown to have prevented a single violent crime.
"Let's be honest," Waldron concluded. "These bills aren't about crime prevention; they're about social bigotry and stigmatizing millions of California residents because they legally own firearms. Golden State citizens deserve serious, responsible solutions to violent crime, not more Orwellian nonsense from anti-gun politicians. During his screen career, Arnold Schwarzenegger played heroes who never blandly accepted stupidity as a standard. Now that he's governor, he should live up to that no-nonsense image."
http://www.ccrkba.org/pub/rkba/press-releases/CA_Bullet_Bills.htm.
