18 States Are Attempting to Implement “Micro-Stamp Encoding” on Fire Arms and Ammunition-Truth!
Summary of eRumor:
A forwarded email warning that several US states have bills in process that would require that all firearm ammunition be encoded with a micro-stamp in order to keep track of ammunition sales. The email goes on to say that any non encoded ammunition sold would be subject to a tax.
The Truth:
Angus McClellan, a spokesperson from the National Rifle Association Institute For Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), told truthorfiction.com that the bills are real, pending and will “likely die at the end of the sessions.”
According to an NRA-ILA web site, this was a process that was recommended in 1969 by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence to provide “a system of giving each gun a number and the development of some device to imprint this number on each bullet fired from the gun.”
Those who support the encoding process hope that it will aid law enforcement to solve crimes but the NRA-ILA’s concern is that the underlying “real purpose is to price handguns beyond the reach of many Americans, by requiring firearms to be made with the gadgetry necessary to create the markings, or to ban handguns by requiring that they ‘micro-stamp’ more consistently than is technologically possible.”
McClellan told truthorfiction.com that as of January 2009 they have been successful in preventing passage of this legislation but there is a chance of its passage in California or one of the New England states. He also said that this issue “remains at the top of our list of legislative priorities. We’ll keep everyone posted on our website and in our magazines if they try to seriously pursue passage in any state, or in the U.S. Congress.”
The NRA-ILA has a fact sheet on the issue and link to the NRA News interview posted on their web site.
Click for NRA-ILA website
updated 01/07/08