According to Firearm Chronicles
Lawmakers in California have returned to the state capitol in Sacramento after an extended summer recess, and they’ve got several gun control bills in their sights. None of them are good, but one in particular could result in an almost total ban on handgun sales in the state, all in the name of public safety.
NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action reports that the Senate Public Safety Committee is scheduled to hear AB 2847 on Friday, and will likely send the measure on to the full Senate for a quick vote as well. The legislation makes some changes to the state’s existing micro stamping law, and none of them will be good for gun owners.
Under existing state law, every new model of handgun sold in the state must be able to imprint (or micro stamp) a unique identifying code in two locations on each cartridge as it’s fired. It’s virtually impossible for gun manufacturers to create a handgun that do that, which means that since the law took effect in 2013, no new models of handguns have been made available for sale in California. Even worse, when existing models of handguns undergo any design change whatsoever, even moving a simple screw a millimeter to the left or right, California DOJ has declared the change has resulted in a new handgun model, and that gun gets dropped from the roster of handguns available for sale as well. It’s a slow-motion gun ban, and AB 2847 is going to make things worse. As NRA-ILA points out:
AB 2847, sponsored by Assembly Member David Chiu (D-17), revises the criteria for handguns to be certified for sale by requiring a micro stamp in one place on the interior of the handgun (current law requires two imprinting locations). The bill also requires the removal of three certified handguns from the roster for each new handgun added. It should be noted that no new semi-automatic handguns have been added to the handgun roster since micro stamping was certified in 2013.
By changing the micro-stamping requirements from two imprinting locations to one, anti-gun lawmakers in California are hoping to spur manufacturers to adopt the practice of putting a micro-stamp on the firing pin of each handgun. That’s technologically possible, though in practice criminals could easily defeat the technology with a nail file, or by simply swapping out firing pins. I don’t think many legislators are actually concerned about how criminals could get around the supposed crime-fighting technology, frankly. I think they’re much more interested in using the micro stamping law to restrict the ability to legally acquire any handgun as much as they can.