livingston
20×102mm Vulcan
Beginning next year, ammunition dealers across the state will be required to maintain logs of all sales — one of many steps California has taken to limit access to bullets. The efforts come as federal lawmakers fail to break the stalemate that for decades has blocked any new major gun control measures, despite a nationwide groundswell from students pushing for more restrictions in the wake of multiple massacres on high school and college campuses.
Under federal law, those who are not legally allowed to buy firearms are also forbidden from purchasing bullets, but there is no effective system in place for enforcing that rule. There are minimum ages for buying ammunition, but many sellers do not check identification. So cities and states are leading the way instead, with California at the forefront, said Ari Freilich, a lawyer with the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Critics such as Lawrence Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said the new ammunition rules were burdensome to law-abiding gun owners, including hunters, range regulars and sports shooters. He added that they offered minimal crime-fighting utility for police and imposed unfair costs on gun sellers and makers.
“Raising taxes on bullets to offset the cost of gun violence is akin to putting a levy on prescription drugs to pay for the price of heroin addiction,” Mr. Keane said.
Gun rights groups have vowed to continue fighting against these and similar measures.
Every few days, detectives comb through an updated list of people who have recently bought bullets, looking for anyone who is prohibited from owning firearms or ammunition. In recent years, the authorities said, these records have led to the seizure of hundreds of illegal guns and to the arrests of dozens of gang members, parolees, registered sex offenders and others.
Sgt. Greg Halstead of the Sacramento Police Department recounted a recent homicide in which the shell casing of an expensive type of bullet was left at the crime scene. With few leads in the case, the police turned to the bullet logs, which have been kept since 2008, to draft a short list of people in the city who had purchased that unusual caliber of ammunition.
“Led us right to our suspect,” Sergeant Halstead said.
Capt. Stephen Carmona, the commanding officer of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Gang and Narcotics Division, said that in 2016 and 2017, his department arrested more than 200 felons, most of them based on clues from the ammunition records, which dealers have been required to keep for more than two decades. The logs are especially useful, he said, in tying specific suspects or gangs to a crime scene where casings are retrieved.
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California Tries New Tack on Gun Violence: Ammunition Control
Under federal law, those who are not legally allowed to buy firearms are also forbidden from purchasing bullets, but there is no effective system in place for enforcing that rule. There are minimum ages for buying ammunition, but many sellers do not check identification. So cities and states are leading the way instead, with California at the forefront, said Ari Freilich, a lawyer with the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Critics such as Lawrence Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said the new ammunition rules were burdensome to law-abiding gun owners, including hunters, range regulars and sports shooters. He added that they offered minimal crime-fighting utility for police and imposed unfair costs on gun sellers and makers.
“Raising taxes on bullets to offset the cost of gun violence is akin to putting a levy on prescription drugs to pay for the price of heroin addiction,” Mr. Keane said.
Gun rights groups have vowed to continue fighting against these and similar measures.
Every few days, detectives comb through an updated list of people who have recently bought bullets, looking for anyone who is prohibited from owning firearms or ammunition. In recent years, the authorities said, these records have led to the seizure of hundreds of illegal guns and to the arrests of dozens of gang members, parolees, registered sex offenders and others.
Sgt. Greg Halstead of the Sacramento Police Department recounted a recent homicide in which the shell casing of an expensive type of bullet was left at the crime scene. With few leads in the case, the police turned to the bullet logs, which have been kept since 2008, to draft a short list of people in the city who had purchased that unusual caliber of ammunition.
“Led us right to our suspect,” Sergeant Halstead said.
Capt. Stephen Carmona, the commanding officer of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Gang and Narcotics Division, said that in 2016 and 2017, his department arrested more than 200 felons, most of them based on clues from the ammunition records, which dealers have been required to keep for more than two decades. The logs are especially useful, he said, in tying specific suspects or gangs to a crime scene where casings are retrieved.
More at ...
California Tries New Tack on Gun Violence: Ammunition Control
