Smuggled U.S. ammo feeds drug wars
PHOENIX -- Every year, thousands of guns are smuggled into Mexico from the United States, fueling the brutal drug-cartel wars and stirring outrage on both sides of the border.
But often overlooked in the controversy are the tons of bullets that also make their way south of the border.
In Mexico, ammunition is strictly regulated and possession of even a single illegal round can lead to prison. But there is nonetheless a steady supply of bullets. Almost all of it comes from the north.
Hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition are purchased each year from online retailers, big-box stores and at gun shows in Arizona and other Southwest border states, then are smuggled across the border.
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So, obviously, we need to regulate ammo sales and possession. I see a few "common sense" actions that would be easy to implement.
First, completely ban all mail-order sales of ammunition. There is obviously no reason for anyone to be able to order and receive even one round of .22 LR so easily.
Second, we need to create and man a new agency charged with tracking, authorizing, and maintaining records of all ammo sales. Wal-Mart already has the video cameras in some locations to record anyone even looking at ammo, this can be easily extended to all retailers who carry ammo. Fingerprints, signatures, mugshots, and DNA samples can be easily collected from every purchaser.
Third, microstamping! This extremely simple, cost-effective method of individually seriealizing every cartridge and bullet - matching numbers, of course, will make identifying the source of the ammo used in a crime so very simple. All the cops will need is one of those fancy microscopes we see on TV, and gun crime will plummet! Ammo manufacturers already have all the automatic equipment to mass-produce the little devils - adding a simple stamper and keeping the cases and bullets in numerical order* should not be a problem, if they are truly patriots!
Fourth, a national registry of reloaders. Every person out there with a Rock Chucker or Lee or Dillon machine, or even a Lee Handloader will be required to register their machine. We already have the BATFE's NFA registry, a paragon of accuracy and efficiency that keeps track of all the Class III weapons in private hands. It would be a simple matter to extend this to reloaders. The same transfer forms, waiting periods, and fingerprint cards used for machine gun transfers can be pressed into use with only minor changes, and not more than a few hundred thoousand new federal jobs created. The manufacturers of reloading equipment should welcome this change, as required serializing equipment sales will make them all rich.
Fifth, and most important - creation of the National Bureau of Ammunition Monitoring And Tracking. To track the billions of cartridges produced every year will require hiring thousands of new federal clerks, and installation of countless PCs and Macs to run the software that will have to be written - a task that will provide employment for thousands of out-of-work programmers. I can see where this bureau alone will create over a million jobs all by itself. The purchases of the equipment needed will give our economy a much-needed stimulus.
There's one aspect of this I have skipped - the need for door-to-door searches of every structure in the US, to find and confiscate every round of unmarked, unregistered ammunition. This will require many more ATF, FBI, and DHS agents than we now have on the payroll, so there's another couple million jobs. To be thorough, we need to scan every square yard of continental America with ground-penetrating radar to find and remove the caches of illicit ammo that all those survivalists and Tea-Party types have squirreled away, in preparation for just such common-sense rules. Lots more purchases of high-tech equipment and more jobs created!
Lest anyone think I advocate the government borrowing more money to pay for all of this common-sense, I propose a modest tax on every round of ammunition, graduated by the caliber and energy of the round - .22 CB would be perhaps $0.50 per round, and .50 BMG might be $25.00 per round in tax. Shooters are rich folks who should be proud to pay a small sum to ensure the security and safety of our Mexican neighbors.
* almost forgot the footnote. Say America produces ten billion cartridges every year. That's 10^10 individual serial numbers. We don't want to re-use numbers, so you need that many every year. We want to keep records for, say, ten years - so we need at least 10^11 individual numbers. They also need a manufacturer's prefix - say there are 100,000 manufacturers and reloaders in the USA.
We end up with an 18-digit serial number on every bullet and cartridge. Fortunately, the technology to do this is easily available: http://www.ammocoding.com/
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