California Bullet Serialization A Bad Idea With National Repercussionsfrom SAAMI
Background
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is in the process of submitting a proposal to the California legislature to mandate that any handgun bullets and their cartridges manufactured, imported and sold in the state be engraved with a serial number. The stated goal of this proposal is to match bullets or their casings recovered at a crime scene with the purchaser of the ammunition. Although this idea sounds laudable in theory, it is totally unworkable in reality. If California passes this legislation, it threatens to bankrupt any ammunition manufacturer that attempts to comply with the legislation, would most likely force an end to all ammunition sales within the stateincluding those to law enforcement, and because of the nature of the ammunition market, would cripple the ability of our armed forces and law enforcement to procure domestically manufactured handgun ammunition.
The proposal being considered requires that:
All handgun ammunition cartridges manufactured, imported, sold at retail or possessed in the state have a serial number laser engraved on the bottom of the bullet (projectile) and on the inside of the cartridge casing;
All cartridges contained in a box of handgun ammunition must bear the same unique serial number;
All packaging would bear the serial number for the cartridges contained in that box and that each box of handgun ammunition and the cartridges contained therein would have a unique serial number; and
We understand that under this scheme licensed retail firearms dealers would be required to record the identity of the purchasers and the serial number of the ammunition to be housed in a government-run database.
The ammunition industry in the U.S. dates back centuries. Each year U.S. manufacturers produce over 8 billion rounds of ammunition. The manufacturing processes of today that takes a lead ingot and casts it into a bullet, and a copper bar that is made into a cartridge, the loading of powder, mating of the bullet and cartridge, then finally packaged is sophisticated, highly automated and geared towards mass production to reduce costs and increase production. Any proposal that would slow this process down to serialize individual rounds would result in hundreds of millions of dollars in costs to manufacturers and the reengineering and redesign of most equipment used in the ammunition manufacturing process. Simply put, it is impossible for manufacturers to comply with the California proposal and remain economically competitive.
Why This Is Not Just a California Issue
In the firearms and ammunition industry, the civilian market supports research, development and sales to our military services and law enforcement. Unlike rifle ammunition, all pistol ammunition purchased by the armed forces and law enforcement comes from civilian manufacturers. By themselves, these markets are too small to support the extremely high volume necessary for ammunition manufacturers to stay in business. California is one of the largest markets for handgun ammunition manufacturers in the country. If manufacturers were forced to abandon the California market, many could face bankruptcy, and our armed forces, homeland security, and state and local law enforcement would suddenly find themselves facing dramatically increased costs for their ammunition. This would curtail training, reduce target practice and leave our armed forces personnel and law enforcement vulnerable on the battlefield and on Americas streets.
The Proposal
The California proposal being Attorney General Lockyer is based on technology under limited development and testing by Ravensforge Skateboard Solutions (
www.ravensforge.com), a company that specializes in products to prevent damage by roller blades and skateboards. To our knowledge Ravensforge has not consulted with any firearms manufacturer on incorporating this technology into ammunition manufacturing. It appears Ravensforge is seeking to be a sole source provider of this technology and creating a monopoly for itself through legislative fiat.
Problems with this technology in the manufacturing process include the following:
Huge Costs: It would cost hundreds of millions of dollars for firearms manufacturers to completely redesign their production facilities to incorporate the laser engraving bullets and casings;
Economically Impossible: It is not possible with the equipment available today to serialize bullets or cases under Attorney General Lockyers proposed scheme. For example, serializing the base of the bullet and interior of the case would have to occur after each component has been manufactured and passed through manythough not allsteps in the quality control process, but before the bullet, case, primer and powder are assembled into a single round. However, after the round is assembled, it might be rejected as it undergoes final quality control measures (e.g., powder charge weight, inverted primer, dents, blemishes) that can force its removal from a particular lot. Removing one round would force pulling an entire box (ammunition is typically sold in 50 round boxes) since you cannot sell a 50 round box with 49 rounds. Also, SAAMI standards recommend testing across an entire product run for test firing, thereby interrupting serial number sequence and adding even more costs to the process;
Safety Concerns Abound: The presence of a laser on the assembly line process close to propellant could be an explosives hazard. For example, standard safety precautions prohibit camera flashes on the factory floor;
Packing and Tracking: A large ammunition factory typically produces over 8 million rounds of ammunition/day. There is simply no other way to guarantee that sequential numbers would be packed in an identically numbered box other than through human packing. It would take literally hundreds of workers to hand pack this volume of ammunition, thereby making this process a non-starter. Tracking and registering the purchasers of hundreds of millions of ammunition boxes would cost tens of tens millions of dollars in store employee staff time, computer infrastructure, and additional government workers. Moreover, leading manufacturers will produce over 1,600 different ammunition varieties (many calibers multiplied by different bullet weights) on a daily basis. Again, volume and speed of the manufacturing process prohibit the possibility of serializing without slowing output to a virtual trickle, thereby driving up prices to the point where a box of ammunition will be prohibitively expensive.
No Proven Law Enforcement Benefits
To our knowledge, there is not one, independent, study that has been produced demonstrating any value in serialization. In fact, the enormous costs to implement such a system would draw funds away from proven crime fighting initiatives. Moreover, loopholes exist in the proposal that render it ineffective. These include, but are not limited to, the following:
To date, home re-loaders are exempt from the plan, thereby offering criminals easy access to unmarked ammunition;
A round of ammunition can be disassembled, its markings removed, then reassembled;
A revolver can be used in the commission of a crime, thereby leaving no spent shell casing if it is discharged; and
Spent shell casings can be collected from target ranges and reloaded (a common practice), thereby effectively masking ownership; and
Those determined to procure unmarked ammunition will purchase it from out of state or on the black market.
Conclusion
A significant portion of the California legislature has been hostile to the firearms industry. If the serialization proposal is taken up and passed to further an anti-gun agenda, the repercussions will be felt across the country. In the end, it could result in the bankruptcy of the U.S. ammunition industry, the destruction of a critical component of our defense industrial base, force the military and law enforcement to curtail training and become dependent on foreign sources of ammunition, and send the cost of a box of bullets well beyond what most could pay.
http://www.saami.org/news/CA_ammoSer040505.htm.
