Gun Free Zone

I bumped into a Venezuelan news article where the Presidential Commission for Guns and and Ammunition Control and Disarmament went to Brazil to visit CBC  (Companhia Brasileira de Cartuchos. Brazilian Ammunition Company) to learn about “ammunition marking and control of its usage” guided by CBC’s Director of Commerce Salesio Nuhs.

Since I am used to gun tech terminology in English only, I wanted to make sure if they were talking about micro-stamping. I googled “Companhia Brasileira de Cartuchos” and it led me to their English website where I find out that they are the manufacturers for Magtech ammunition, a brand well known in the US. I could not find a thing about micro-stamping or ammunition marking anywhere so I next Googled the name of Salesio Nuhs. It confirmed that the man works for CBC and also an article in Pravda’s Portuguese version where Mr. Nuhs explains how the company helps the Government. He said:

Brazil already has one of the world’s most restrictive laws on guns and ammunition. All weapons manufactured in the country have a serial number marking in several parts, also the ammunition that have an ID in the base that allows you to track the buyer in real time and via the online system….It allows the the Army to consult in real time, the ammunition sold, inventories in the stores and the amount of ammunition purchased by the consumer.

Where specifically is the ammunition marked was found in the Brazilian on-line publication O Cone Sul:

“The ammunition for the organs of public security  have a laser marking on the rim of the shell, which allows identification of its purchaser. From the information provided by industry was found that the ammunition from the PM’s armed gangs were supplying the German Complex, “explains Salesio Nuhs, vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers of Arms and Ammunition (Aniam).

Farther down in the article, Mr. Nuhs explains that the authority actually calls CBC to a crime scene where cases are present to trace the origin of the ammunition because it is CBC the one that created and maintains the micro-stamping technology.

Although I doubt the Brazilian Army is somewhat tracking the lots of Magtech ammunition sold in the US, it is alarming that such capabilities are not only available but running somewhere else. Still the idea that micro-stamped ammunition is already flowing through our commercial pipelines is disturbing. I confess that I do not have Magtech ammunition with me so this is all speculation on my part (so far), but it would be nice to see if the cartridges sold here do have some sort of markings in the cases or even the bullets themselves.

I sent an email to CBC and I will be expecting an answer sometime next week. Withe any luck I’ll try to find not only if they do see if I can get a description of their micro-stamping techniques and tracing system.

PS: CBC also produces a limited amount of firearms (The site shows what appears to be a clone of a Ruger 10-22) and they admit in the article that RFID chips are embedded and that they provide the tools for their tracking. Chiappa all over again.

Sean Sorrentino corrects rightfully:

I think that you are using the term incorrectly. “Microstamping” has always been used to refer to the idiot idea that you could modify guns to stamp a serial number in the case as it was fired in order to ID the gun from which it was fired. Since only a moron would believe that this was possible, it hasn’t gotten far.

What you are talking about is ammo serialization/ammo registration. That’s expensive and wasteful of resources, but technically possible. It requires that all ammo sold be “registered” at the point of sale. That type of registration has been outlawed in the US. That’s why the gun grabbers are trying to argue about how many serial numbers can dance on the head of a firing pin.

Courtesy of Linoge I got his Team Patch, yeah!
East Tennesee MHI are also known as the Tritium Gang (Glow in the dark joke.) Since 1944, the team are the experts in radiation-mutated monsters for the whole world. Based out of Knoxville, they are tough as they come. They drink lemonade made with  Heavy Water and use graphite for combat make-up. There is the persistent rumor that one Ronnie Barret used to be a Hunter before he decided to retire and dedicate himself to the design and creation of weapons that can reach out and touch monster where they hurt the most.

The link takes you to a media press release. Some excerpts:

Washington, D.C. – Eighteen years ago today, on November 30, 1993, President Bill Clinton was joined by Jim and Sarah Brady and many others in the White House for the signing of the Brady Law, the landmark legislation that instituted criminal background checks on firearm purchases from federally licensed gun dealers and created the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The bill signing in 1993 was an emotional capstone for Jim and Sarah Brady, who fought bravely and tirelessly to pass the Brady law after Jim was severely wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

On February 28, 1994, the law started blocking handgun purchases by felons and other legally prohibited buyers, such as fugitives from justice.   For the first five years of the law, authorities had up to 5 business days to complete background checks while the FBI built the computerized system to conduct the checks.

Let’s go over the whole thing again: Brady Campaign is telling you straight to your face that the NICS check and the Five Day Waiting Period would have stopped John Hinckley. Stop. Nothing and nobody can argue that….except the facts: Hinckley was not a Felon, had not been determined mentally incompetent before the shooting and the gun was bought six months before the assassination attempt.

One more thing on the media press release:

Through the end of December 2009, the latest year for which data is available, the Brady law had blocked over 1.9 million attempts to purchase a gun by legally prohibited purchasers at gun dealers

And that is an outright lie. Brady fails to inform that immense majority (way over the 90 percentile) of those “blocks” were false positives by either data input error at the time of purchase or other mistakes. If truly 1.9 million felons were stopped from buying guns, it means 1.9 million federal cases that had either be taken to trial or pleaded for violating 18 U.S.c. §§ 92] et. seq., are punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment and/or up to a $250,000 fine as printed on top of ATF form 4473 which is done in every firearms transaction with a Federal Firearms Licensee.

At the first anniversary of the Brady Bill, Then president Bill Clinton said:

Well, now we know that, as the Secretary said, over 40,000 convicted felons, fugitives, drug dealers, gang members, stalkers, were prevented from purchasing handguns in the Brady law’s first 11 months. I should point out that the real national number is bigger than that because, as you know, there are some States that have companion laws that go along with that. And the estimates are that, nationwide in the States with Brady-like laws and the Brady law, the total is more like 70,000.

Amazingly so, there were only four prosecutions for violation of the Brady Bill during the same time period with a grand total of zero convictions.In fact during CYs 2002 and 2003, only 154 (less than 1 percent) of the 120,000 persons who were denied during the NICS background check were prosecuted.

But wait, there is more! The press release said that the Brady Law helped block 1.9 million attempts to to purchase a gun by legally prohibited purchasers at gun dealers. Yet the FBI reports that between November 30, 1998 to October 31, 2011 there was a grand total of 882,447 denials. This is half the number Brady Campaign is touting, why the need to inflate them?The reason is simple: The Brady Law was heavily advertised by both Government and the Media as the solution to all gun problems and pushed through Congress.The moment it was signed by president Clinton, they changed the tune to “A good first step” indicating that more gun control measures were on the way. Yes, they lied. Then  statistics started to come in and

The Review of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Enforcement of Brady Act Violations Identified Through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Report Number I-2004-006. July 2004 states the following:

Our review also found that few NICS cases are prosecuted. During CYs 2002 and 2003, only 154 (less than 1 percent) of the 120,000 persons who were denied during the NICS background check were prosecuted.

You want to know the total number of NICS checks for 2002 and 2003? 16,935,910. If my math is not too bad, that means only 0.0009% of the total NICS checks for those years were prosecutable.

There is more to the Brady Law, but this should suffice for now. If you are not convinced by now of the capability of the Brady Campaign to lie through their teeth and their desire to treat Law Abiding Citizens like criminals, I don’t know what else can.

A Geek with Guns takes on the fake supporters of the Second Amendment.

Must read.

On an article about people lining up for free food because they are starving.

Fail One: A Fat person is not the right image to convey the message.

Fail Two: Knowing the liberal slant of the Herald, the editors were sleeping on this one.

Which, of course begs the official bumpersticker of the Obama Recovery:

Under the proposed Deaprtment of Justice guidelines to detain terrorists suspects, if you happen to have guns, ammunition, food for seven days or happen to have digits missing from your hands, you can be detained.

Who would have thought that hurricane preparations would make you a terrorist? And somebody had been watching The Kingdom and The Hurt Locker one too many times.

This is not new. During the 90s and the crazy fear of Militia groups, pretty much the same hysteria. Some congressmen tried to introduce legislation to forbid people from stocking food, fuel and basic supplies. They were unrelenting and passed restrictions on gun ownership (Assault Weapons Ban) and even wanted to prohibit books that were deemed “dangerous” although none of them were from know socialist or communist sources.

I guess they rather see people living in a Post Katrina way than self sufficient.

Seriously, we need to vote out the current bunch of morons.
(h/t Say Uncle)

With the upcoming Senate vote on the the Reciprocity Bill, the usual suspects are raising the hysterical volume to Occupy Drum Band levels. The main argument appears to be that cops and local governments cannot verify if a concealed weapon license is valid and that it is a risk to LEOs who might stop a car or a person with a concealed gun and this puts their lives at risk. The other argument is that out of state visitors will run amok and kill innocent people because the requirements vary too much from state to state.

Let’s clear the air, shall we?

1) Police Officers are trained to treat every stop they make as if they were dealing with a dangerous subject. Basically, if they do not know you, you are a suspect until proven otherwise. I am still amazed that Police Chiefs go on camera insinuating that their officers are dumb enough or untrained on how to approach a person. And if they are not trained in that particular subject, the blame lies with the Police Chief, not on legal gun owners carrying a gun with a permit. It only takes watching several episodes of COPS and hear the rank and file officer comment on how they approach every single call to realize the Richter magnitude scale of rubbish in the assertion that LEOs will become lambs to slaughter because they might stop a Law Abiding Citizen carrying a concealed weapon.

2) If you are stopped, the officer will run a background check on you anyway. So, if you are a criminal and manage to get your hands on a carry license or have a fake one, the standard background check will show you are not allowed nearby a weapon and your license to carry is invalid in any and all states. And if you are packing, you are going to jail or get shot on the spot if your hand goes anywhere near your gun.

3) Under National Reciprocity, the Citizen MUST abide by the laws of the state he is visiting. I have seen hints and even outright accusations from the sophisticated people fearing that “weirdos” from Florida or Arizona are not good enough to have a gun in their more “advanced” states and follow the law. First of all, comments like that reek of unadulterated prejudice and I am tired of idiots that consider themselves superior because they live in a zip code that begins with 10 and thinks the rest of his fellow citizens are to be considered mentally retarded fools that should be put in pens unless they are taking a vacation in Boca Raton visiting the In-Laws and he might need somebody to valet park his rented Caddy of fix them a Mojito.
There are plenty of CCWers that have already traveled to other states where there is reciprocity without problems because we are the must Law Abiding segment of the population. If there was an actual problem, they would have data showing problems with Out Of State CCWs and that data would have already come up and be used by  the Chiefs of Police that oppose National Reciprocity, but since we behave, their only recourse is to lie about what might happen.

4) States that do not require a license to carry still issue a license at the request of the Citizen. With the exception of New Hampshire Vermont, states with Constitutional Carry will issue a license to those who apply for it. That way if a citizen of those states wants to travel across the nation with his/her gun, he/she will be complying with the law.

5) Antis complain that some states requirements are too lax and will endanger people in states with more stringent requirements. This is a veiled accusation to instill in minds that Criminals can get permits easily in supposedly lax states. As far as I know, all states that issue licenses have the same basic pattern: Fill a form with your personal data, have a picture taken, have your fingerprints taken, have a NICS (federal) background check done and proof of safely being able to handle a firearm which requires a certificate from a firearms instructor (Note:Georgia and Alabama do not require training to exercise a Constitutional Right). There are some minor variations per state but that is pretty much the minimum. Some states add different things such as longer training, some restrictions as who can obtain a permit and even some use the old Jim Crow standard of “Good Character determined by Law Enforcement” and getting recommended by 2 respectable people. Now, remember that Gun Control is not about guns but about control; with that in mind, what the antis are afraid of is to lose the control they have on their local citizens because somebody from other state would be able to carry a gun and defend himself whereas the residents of such state have an incredible hard time getting a permit or not at all. Can you imagine the storm of controversy that would result at the headline “Florida Tourist Attacked by Gang Members In NYC Subway Uses His Gun And Defends Himself.” Or “Arizona Woman Shoots Would-Be Rapist in Trenton, NJ.”  These are two states that have concealed weapons permits in their laws, but it is almost impossible for the local Joe or Jane to obtain one. But if they happen to see that somebody from other state can carry a gun and defend himself where he or she can’t would will be too much to bear and you can bet people will demand that the process to get weapons permit for the citizens of those states be expedited.

And again, there are many states with supposedly “lax” requirements that have reciprocity agreements with states with more “stringent” ones and, if there are problems, they are not being reported (fat chance, media would love to bash on that) or they are so miniscule as to be inconsequential.

I think I covered the gist of it and the post in itself is getting to long. Please feel free to comment or add to my rant.