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From the National Rifle Association:
House Bill 517, Maryland’s ammunition serialization bill, received an “unfavorable” status in the House Judiciary Committee and was formally withdrawn on Friday, February 29.
HB517, introduced by State Delegate Emmett Burns (D-10), would have required ammunition manufacturers to encode a serial number on all ammunition for regulated firearms (handguns and “assault weapons”) sold in the state and would require the registration of the ammunition to the purchaser. Only shotgun ammunition would have been exempted. All non-encoded ammunition privately possessed would have to be disposed of by January 1, 2009. HB517 would have also allowed the State Police to create an extensive and intrusive database on all ammunition purchasers, paid for by a tax of 5 cents per round.
Every now and then, a victory is scored in favor of the good guys.
It should be noted that this bill would not have stopped one crime. What it would have done would have made criminals out of legal gun owners. What would happen if your ammo was stolen? Or you lost it? Or you gave it away to a friend?
And quite frankly, I don't trust the State of Maryland at all on any IT projects. How would they prevent data entry problems? What happens if you are "tagged" with ammo that is stolen from someone else, and that ammo is used in a crime?
Better yet-- how would the ammo be read? Are we going to assume that all criminals never police their brass? Because I am pretty confident any serialization on the round itself would be destroyed the minute the road came in contact with anything.
This was not only a bad bill, but a stupid one. Emmett Burns should go back to school and bone up on his good government studies.