Ammunition Accountability

Ammunition Accountability

I received notice of a group promoting what they call "ammunition accountability." By this, they mean that they want a law requiring unique ID numbers on every bullet and case:

Ammunition coding technology assigns a unique code to every round of ammunition manufactured, and by recording sales records, law enforcement personnel will be able to easily trace the ammunition involved in a crime and have an avenue to pursue and solve even the most difficult cases.

The unique code is micro-laser engraved on factory-produced ammunition. This laser engraving is etched on both the projectile and the inside of the cartridge casing.

They make the claim that:

Each year there are many homicides from senseless gun violence in America and perhaps more astounding is the fact that 30% of those crimes go unsolved.

Did you read that as 30% of gun homicides go unsolved? That was how I read it. However, I can't find any data on the breakdown of gun homicides by solution. The figures from Crime in the United States 2007, Table 10, "Expanded Homicide Data Tables" shows that 36.9% of all homicides are relationship "Unknown." Even those where the relationship of offender and victim is known, this may not mean that we know who the offender is. If you find a convenience store clerk shot to death, and the cash register has been emptied, you can be pretty sure that this was a robbery, even if you never find the killer.

When you look at the same data broken down by weapon type, it turns out that 36.8% of handgun and rifle homicides are relationship "Unknown." The temptation to think that serial numbering ammunition might solve some significant fraction of those crimes is quite strong. It is certainly the case that such an approach would make it possible to identify to whom a particular recovered bullet or case was first legally sold. But there are some serious problems with this:

1. It applies only to factory-production ammunition. It isn't exactly a high technology to cast bullets. Many people do it themselves, even today, when there is neither pricing nor criminal motivations to do so.

2. It is utterly impossible to use for shotgun pellets.

3. Since cases are commonly scrounged from shooting ranges and reloaded, the number on the cartridge case only tells who the first lawful retail buyer of this case was. Handgun cases can be reloaded 5-10 times without problem.

4. Ammunition lasts a long, long time. I understand that even World War II era ammunition works quite reliably. Anyone who is intending to commit a serious crime with a gun and has half a brain will simply buy existing ammunition. Especially because Guns & Ammo salesman of the year Barack Obama has caused an astonishing run on ammo, there are going to be plenty of people over the next few years who are going to look at the 10,000 rounds on ammo sitting in their garage, and ask if perhaps it's time to sell.

5. Unlike firearms, which federal law regulates rather carefully about where you can buy, ammo is pretty loosely regulated. If California passes this ammunition accountability law, you can drive to Nevada, and buy all you want.

6. It turns out that the people pushing this "Ammunition Accountability" have something more than the public interest at heart. From the March 5, 2008 Seattle Weekly:

Ford adds that they also figured bullets and casings were more likely to be left behind at a crime scene than a gun. With serialized ammunition, whether by the bullet or the box, it would be possible to at least find out who had originally purchased the rounds.
Mace and Ford spent four and a half years and about $200,000 securing the patent for their ammunition tracking system. But once that patent was in place and they had formed a company, the unambiguously named Ammunition Coding System, to market the product, they couldn't find a manufacturer willing to consider stamping their bullets. So they focused their efforts on convincing lawmakers that coded ammunition could be a crucial crime-solving tool.
To this end, Ammunition Coding hired Briahna Taylor, a lobbyist with Gordon, Thomas, Honeywell's Tacoma-based government affairs office. With Taylor's help, they began pushing for ammunition coding legislation on the state level. Taylor quickly launched a Web site, ammunitionaccountability.com, and bills were introduced in 12 states, including Washington.

7. How much will this add to the cost of ammunition? The promise is five cents per bullet. That's a non-trivial increase in the price, and for .22 LR, that's roughly tripling the price.

8. How accurately will those records be kept? You may recall the hullaballoo some years ago when someone produced a recording of someone at BATF, during a training session, telling agents that they were supposed to testify that the machine gun registration records were 100% accurate, when that was simply not true. Records were out of date, lost, wrong--and yet the "100% accurate" claim was something that agents were supposed to testify to under oath:

Busey began his roll call presentation by acknowledging that "Our first and main responsibility is to make accurate entries and to maintain accuracy of the NFRTR...." Moments later Busey makes the astonishing statement that "...when we testify in court, we testify that the data base is 100% accurate. That's what we testify to, and we will always testify to that. As you probably well know, that may not be 100 percent true."
Busey then goes on for several minutes describing the types of errors which creep into the NFR&TR and then repeats his damning admission:
"So the information on the 728,000 weapons that are in the database has to be 100 percent accurate. Like I told you before, we testify in court and, of course, our certifications testify to that, too, when we're not there to testify, that we are 100 percent accurate."
How bad was the error rate in the NFR&TR? Busey again:
"...when I first came in a year ago, our error rate was between 49 and 50 percent, so you can imagine what the accuracy of the NFRTR could be, if your error rate is 49 to 50 percent."

Now, it is very possible that errors in the ammunition database would be identified and brought forward in a court of law--in which case such errors, unless they were utterly trivial, would create sufficient doubt that these records would only add to a jury's existing certainty. But it is a harsh truth that when a government agent testifies, "Our records are 100% accurate," juries are rather inclined to believe them--even when the circumstances make this most unlikely--such as maintaining unique ID information on billions of rounds produced and sold every year.

9. If a criminal really wanted to bollix up the criminal justice system, he will go to outdoor ranges, and pick up random shells in his caliber. If he has occasion to shoot someone, throw down a couple of shells. Yes, the bullet numbers won't match the shell numbers--but that could be the result of using reloaded ammunition. And the original lawful purchaser of those shells will now spend several hours persuading the police that he wasn't at the crime scene. The mismatches of the numbers will also create even more uncertainty and doubt that can be exploited by even an unclever defense attorney.