On Mon, 11 Feb 2008, Al O'Brien wrote:
> Thank you for the e-mail John. The bill you mentioned will not get a
> hearing this year. The Police are interested in the concept contained
> in the bill, because it will help them trace where ammunition, used in
> crimes, came from.
Theoretically it _may_, but at what cost to the public? Please remember to
balance the costs of any proposal against its hypothetical benefits.
Here are some further points I didn't cover in my original letter:
Are police departments willing to, or will they even be able to, afford
the much higher ammunition costs that will inevitably result? Will they
reduce their practice time at the shooting range and thus decrease overall
public safety? Or will there be an added exception for "special, LEO-only"
unserialized ammunition?
Unserialized ammunition would become an attractive theft target and black
market commodity; and if police departments cannot reliably keep track of
their weapons (I call to your attention the theft of Seattle police chief
Gil Kerlikowske's personal sidearm from his unattended car as only a
single example), can they realistically be expected to control and account
for every round of their unserialized ammunition? Do we wish to add that
unproductive burden to their already large workload, and further distract
them from doing their real jobs?
Most criminals obtain their firearms directly through theft, or from
back-alley purchase of firearms stolen by someone else. Serialized
ammunition will no doubt be stolen as well. Do you indeed wish to impose a
recordkeeping burden on every law-abiding firearm owner that will force
them to record all of the serial numbers of all of the ammunition they
buy, just in case they get robbed and don't want the police to investigate
*them* for a crime of violence they did not commit? Again, this is a far
greater burden than recording the serial number on a firearm you've
purchased - many firearm owners go through thousands of rounds of
ammunition a year.
How does tracking the serial number of stolen ammunition help solve a
crime? I admit that it might help prove that a given person already in
custody was involved, but many other, better tools already exist to do
that.
And as for police interest: there is a constant balancing process between
the investigative powers of the State and the individual liberties and
freedoms of the People. I personally favor erring on the side of
individual liberties and freedoms - I hope you do as well. Mere interest
in the concept, without a proven track record that it *will* greatly
assist in solving otherwise unsolvable crimes, is far from sufficient
justification for enacting a law with this many serious negative side
effects.
Serialized ammunition is _not_ a workable solution to the problem of
solving crimes at this time, and it probably will never be. The only thing
it will effectively do is ban ammunition from the vast majority of the
law-abiding populace.
And given that inevitable result, I don't see how this proposal can be
anything other than a violation of Article I Section 24 of the Washington
State Constitution. Enacting a requirement that prices ammunition out of
the reach of almost all citizens is clearly an impairment of the right to
bear arms.
Please, please kill this bill. That it will not come to the floor _this_
session is not adequate. Kill it dead, permanently.
Show me that my trust in you is still built on a sound foundation.
Thank you.
