Information about Your Second Amendment Rights 

Larry Pratt, Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, in his column entitled, "ENCODING AMMUNITION WILL ONLY AID CRIMINALS," warned us about it back in February of 2008. During 2008, "Encoding" Legislation popped up in numerous states including Maryland, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and others...and actually passed in California. See NRA's website listing of related legislation.

With SB 12, the ammo taxers and gun grabbers aim their assault at Georgians once again.

Senator Ronald Ramsey, Sr. (D., 43rd District) has prefiled Senate Bill 12 in the Georgia General Assembly for the session to open in 2009. The bill requires that all ammunition sold or possessed in Georgia must be have unique codes stamped onto the projectile, the casing and the retail packaging. It provides for a database to track the purchases of said ammunition and for the projectiles and casings sold for hand loading. It provides penalties for those possessing or selling unencoded ammunition. It provides for taxing the ammunition (projectiles, casings or cartidges) at one half cent per round.

As Pratt suggests, the crime reduction and law enforcement payoff for this measure is highly questionable and its alleged value comes nowhere near justifying the cost of enforcement and data collection. It is highly questionable whether such measures would result in any credible crime-solving tool. As the NRA points out, various ammo tracking schemes at the national level were abandoned because they are not feasible or worthy of the effort. In addition, the ATF's record-keeping practices have long been in question.

ATF (BATFE - Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) has a database of thousands of machine guns registered as required by law. According to Pratt, a BATFE training video depicts former BATFE registry head Thomas Busey telling new BATFE agents that the machine gun registry is "about 50 percent inaccurate."

Pratt writes,

Canada has had a handgun registry since 1934 that has never, ever, once been used to solve a crime. Their effort to register long guns has resulted in failure and scandal (hackers have penetrated the system and stolen guns from collectors identified in the registry).

Knowing this, does anyone believe for a minute that BATFE, which cannot keep an accurate data base of a few thousand machine guns, can actually keep track of hundreds of millions of bullets? Police will end up solving crimes the way they do now -- without help from gun or bullet registries.

Does anyone believe that the Georgia Department of Public Safety can do any better with a database of millions (perhaps billions) of bullets?

As the NRA points out in their Ammunition Summary, there is a long history of efforts to curtail and restrict private gun ownwership by taxing or outlawing ammunition. NRA lists numerous good reasons to oppose the Maryland (2008) legislation and any similar ammunition encoding legislation.

In effect, such ammo legislation becomes a massive tax on ammunition users who will foot the bill which effectively infringes on our Second Amendment rights and which makes recreational shooting cost prohibitive. .22 Caliber ammunition which can be used in rifles as well as handguns is subject to this tax.

Anyone with minimal knowledge of ballistics knows that hollow points and fragmenting projectiles are very unlikely to be recoverable with usable encoding. Revolvers and guns equipped with brass catchers will not leave encoded casings at crime scenes. And finally, we know that criminals obey "gun control" laws in the same manner that politicians follow their oaths of office. Most steal the weapons and ammunition they use in crime. The proposed database will lead police investigators to the victims of theft and very seldom to the wrongdoer.

As Mark Twain once said, "No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session." At least one legislator is plotting another goofy waste of your money... AND your liberties are under attack. We should all take action right away.

Various sportsmens groups (e.g., the Camo Coalition, et al) and gun rights groups are gearing up to oppose SB 12 in Georgia. We, the people, need to make sure that this attempt to take our rights fails.

Below is the letter I wrote to Sen. Ramsey, Sen. Staton and Rep. Peake.

"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."" --Thomas Jefferson

"Arms in the hands of the citizens may be used at individual discretion for the defense of the country, the overthrow of tyranny, or private self defense." --John Adams

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined." --Patrick Henry

"To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." --George Mason

"1935 will go down in History! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient and the world will follow our lead to the future!" --Adolph Hitler