Comment on Judge blocks California law requiring safety features for handguns

Blamemeta@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• Pons_Aelius@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  The 2001 law, known as the Unsafe Handgun Act, requires new semiautomatic handguns to have an indicator showing when there is a round in the chamber and a mechanism to prevent firing when the magazine is not fully inserted, both meant to prevent accidental discharge. It also requires that they stamp a serial number onto bullets they fire, known as microstamping.

  What part of that leads you object to them using the word safety?

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  • SilentCal@lemmy.basedcount.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Loaded chamber indicators and magazine disconnects are fine to call safety devices. They are comparable to cars with tire pressure lights and automatic braking. Some people will still debate them…

    However microstamping is a feature that has never been economically or technologically feasible. It’d be like passing a law that in CA only cars that leave unique tire prints everywhere they go could be sold. And then Californians could only buy cars models from before the law was passed.

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    • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Technical feasibility is a valid (but separate) issue but it does not negate my question.

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      • SilentCal@lemmy.basedcount.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I believe the OPs point was that because one of the features they required is not possible, and the law required all the features to be implemented, the intent of the lawmakers was not safety.

        But let’s assume that the feature is possible and that politicians always have the best of intents. Microstamping itself does not prevent malicious or accidental use. It provides a detective value for after the fact review, rather than a preventative value. So in the most technical of ways, the OP has a valid position in my opinion.

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    • baldingpudenda@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I’m trying to figure out how a handgun would microstamp a bullet. My understanding of guns is that the magazine pushes the ammo up and the slide pushes it in the chamber. Then, the striker sets off the powder. The only place the bullet(the projectile) might come in contact with the gun would be as it’s pushed into the chamber.

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      • SilentCal@lemmy.basedcount.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Theoretically there would have to be a printing mechanism either on:

        1. the firing pin
        2. the bolt face
        3. the chamber
        4. the extractor
        5. the ejector

        Those are the only direct contact surfaces between the gun and the cartridge I am aware of. It would be better on the firing pin so that unfired but loaded cases don’t get double stamped and obscure the print.

        The problem is that all of these parts are smaller than your pinky finger and must withstand ~2500 bar of pressure, extreme temperature, and mechanical stresses. The print also must be uniquely identifiable on a thin piece of brass, hopefully for an equivalent duty cycle as the part it’s replacing (assume 5-15k cycles).

        I’m not sure if anyone has actually made a device to do this in the 10 years this law has been around. But I’d be impressed just for the engineering of the thing.

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  • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The microstamping. As far as I know, no gun does this. What it effectively is, is a way to ban guns without outright calling it a ban.

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  • Blamemeta@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Microstamping. No gun made has it. Afaik, no gun has ever been made with microstamping.

    Its a ban by another name.

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    • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      No cars were made with catalectic converters until laws were passed mandating them.

      Every computer printer sold in the last 30 years prints an invisible code on the paper uniquely identifying the printer. None did this until a national security law was passed.

      Surely a gun manufacturer would see this as a USP if they were the only ones able/willing to implement the requirement.

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      • Blamemeta@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I’m not an engineer, so take this with a grain of salt, but it would massively raise costs (think poll tax), the engraving would wear out in a few hundred rounds, we don’t even bother with rape kits, why would we bother with brass, and it can easily be defeated in about a minute by sticking a sanding stone in there. There is no benefit, only extra costs.

        Its the NRA, but they know a lot of things I don’t. nraila.org/…/micro-stamping-and-ballistic-fingerp…

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      • FireTower@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        The technology behind microstamping is the priority work of Taclabs any company that wanted to implement it would need to pay that company in order to do so. Currently the technology isn’t mature enough to be practical used.

        Plus there’s a litany of problem like the fact that any components that could be used to microstamp could be replaced with a different set of parts bearing no or different stamps.

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  • FireTower@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The current system has the state certifying a specific SKU, meaning to other wise identical firearms could have one legal and one illegal because the second one differentiated by what finish it was sold with & the SKU hadn’t been specifically approved.

    They also implemented a policy of restricting additional firearms to the approved roster unless others were removed.

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