What Next? A Tax On Murder?

What Next? A Tax On Murder?

One of the most detestable aspects to representative government is that legislators often introduce bills that anyone smarter than a soggy piece of toast would know are simply not going to work. So why do they do it? Because they want to be able to send out flyers that emphasize that they are doing something up there, besides tapping shoes in the adjoining bathroom stall, or getting arrested for drunk driving, or soliciting bribes campaign contributions.

The latest piece of really pointless legislature is AB 962, currently under consideration by the morons in the California legislature. What this bill does:

1. It requires a license to sell handgun ammunition--making it unlawful to transfer more than 50 rounds of handgun ammunition per month without a license. So no giving a couple of boxes of .22 LR to your brother when you go out plinking in the desert. (You do know that handguns come in .22 LR, right?) The bill allows sales of .22 LR to someone who is 18 "if the vendor reasonably believes that the ammunition is being acquired for use in a rifle and not a handgun." And how, exactly, would you "reasonably believe" that?

2. No retail seller can have handgun ammunition out where someone can get access to it without sales assistance. When I lived in California (before moving to the United States), handgun ammunition (rimfire and centerfire) was on the shelf in sporting goods stores, Wal-Mart, and even drug stores where I lived. No more! At least they aren't requiring it to be kept under the counter, and sold in plain brown wrapping paper.

3. The bill also requires that "a person enjoined from engaging in activity associated with a criminal street gang, as specified, would be prohibited from having under his or her possession, custody, or control, any ammunition." I guess that I understand that. But this "enjoined" thing doesn't seem to be defined in any of the 29 California codes. What is this? How can what seems to be a prior restraint on free association survive court challenge? You don't have to be an ACLU member to be a bit concerned about the due process aspects of this. A bit more importantly: if you are worried that someone "associated with a criminal street gang" is going to have handgun ammunition, I would think that you would be even more worried about this person, or the rest of his gang, having something in which to put that handgun ammunition. If California can get away with punishing you for possessing handgun ammunition when you apparently have not yet actually committed a crime--why not go whole hog, and punish you for being associated with a criminal street gang? I am hard pressed to see how one of these survives court challenge, and the other doesn't.

4. "The bill would prohibit supplying or delivering, as specified, handgun ammunition to prohibited persons, as described, by persons or others who know or by using reasonable care should know that the recipient is a person prohibited from possessing ammunition." Since we gave up branding people on the forehead for being felons, back before the Civil War, how do you know? The actual text of the bill isn't any better about this. What constitutes "reasonable care"? I can see a whole bunch of civil rights suits coming out of this because a store clerk decides that a black man coming into buy a box of ammo is dressed just a bit too ghetto--and prosecutions if a store clerk decides not to risk the civil rights suit.

Why is it so much easier to pass a law that puts all these restrictions on handgun ammunition, instead of making a concerted effort to send violent felons to prison and keep them there? Yes, this is cheaper than sending violent felons to prison. The difference is: sending violent felons to prison works. This won't.