by Dave Workman
Senior Editor

California anti-gunners suffered a stinging defeat when the state Assembly rejected micro-stamping legislation that would have mandated numbering of all firearms and probable future serialization of ammunition sold in the state.

It was clearly a victory for the firearms industry and gun rights organizations that had fought AB-352, understanding that its passage could have seriously crippled legal firearms sales to Golden State residents. Spearheading opposition to the measure were the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), National Rifle Association, California Rifle and Pistol Association and the California Association of Firearms Retailers. They got a critically strategic boost when major California law enforcement groups opposed the measure.

The victory was hailed by NSSF Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence Keane.

“We are thankful that common sense and sound public policy prevailed,” Keane said. “This legislation would have forced an unproven, costly and easily defeatable technology upon both firearms consumers and taxpayers, and would have resulted in a ban on all ammunition in California.”

He asserted that the legislation could have also allowed bans on ammunition in the state. That would have been possible under language that would have allowed the state attorney general to require serial numbers on all ammunition sold in the state at some undesignated “future date,” noted the Outdoor Wire, an Internet outdoors news service.

This is not the first time a stiff gun control measure was defeated in California. Three years ago, an effort to introduce so-called ballistic fingerprinting was derailed when experts in the field reported that the technology was not reliable. The focus shifted from one unreliable technology to another with the introduction of the micro-stamping legislation.

The NSSF reported that an independent, peer-reviewed study published in a forensic firearms journal showed that micro-stamping is also not reliable. A report on the vulnerability of such technology noted that micro-stamping is “easily defeated” by the use of “common household tools,” the NSSF said in a press release.

Had the measure passed, NSSF estimated it would have caused as much as a $150 increase in the cost of individual firearms.

“We have always said that further research into micro-stamping, like the study currently being conducted at the University of California-Davis, would be necessary before the legislature considers mandating this very dubious technology,” added Keane. “By defeating AB-352, the California Assembly passed a measure of common sense.”

Under the legislation, firearms would have to be “micro-stamped” so that a microscopic serial number would be etched into a cartridge case each time the gun is fired. Theoretically, this would allow criminal investigators to trace a crime gun by recovering the micro-stamped numbers.

However, nobody was able to explain how this would help law enforcement track down killers using stolen guns, or using un-stamped firearms or guns that had been altered through such easy means as switching a stamped firing pin for one that wasn’t.