the drunken punches just keep coming

So it appears as though an end-run attempt at banning normal-capacity magazines is not the only underhanded trick the idiot Democrat congresscritters (but I repeat myself) have up their sleeves; it would appear as though they very much want the ability to ban "anonymous" online ammunition sales as well:

U.S. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY4) and advocates from the gun safety community announced new legislation being introduced this week to make the sale of ammunition safer for law-abiding Americans who are sick and tired of the ease with which criminals can now anonymously stockpile for mass murder.

The bill, called the Stop Online Ammunition Sales Act, will keep Americans safe by limiting the ability of people planning for mass murder to anonymously purchase unlimited quantities of ammunition through the Internet or other mail-order means. It would also require that ammunition dealers report bulk sales of ammunition to law enforcement.

Once again, where to begin?

Just as before, they lead off with a blatant misappropriation of the English language – Frankie and Carolyn are for "gun safety" in the same way that MADD is for "alcohol safety"; in reality, both groups want the named objects banned beyond all possible recognition.

Second, ammunition sales are about as "safe" as you can possibly make them already. The cartridges are generally packed in cardboard or plastic boxes to keep their primers from impacting anything and unintentionally going off, sometimes the individual cartridges are even partitioned off by themselves, and all shipments have to be labeled ORM-D and transported accordingly. Likewise, federal law already prohibits the possession of ammunition by persons under indictment for a potential felony, convicted felons, controlled substance users/abusers, fugitives from justice, illegal aliens, dishonorable dischargees from the military, anyone subject to a domestic violence restraining order, and unsupervised minors.

In other words, it would appear as though the whole "safety" thing is already covered by existing laws… but you and I both know Lautenberg means "impossible" when he means "safer".

Moving on, how does one "stockpile" anything "anonymously" off the internet? Sure, I suppose you could pay with money orders (which rather defeats the purpose of shopping on the internet to begin with), have the ammunition shipped to one of those "Mailboxes Etc." kind of places where you have a box rented out for cash and a fake ID, and no one would really be the wiser… except most of those stores keep records, most of those stores have cameras, and you would still be leaving a trail of information from the retailer straight back to you. In reality, the Aurora murderer probably used his home address and his own personal credit card for all of his ammunition purchases, making this "anonymous" crap just another idiotic canard.

Fourth, say this bill actually gets signed into law – a hypothetical situation I do not at all find possible given the current political and social climate, but accept it as a postulate for the time being. Now, in theory, you cannot "anonymously purchase unlimited quantities of ammunition through the Internet", all well and good… what about purchasing "unlimited quantities of ammunition" through your local brick-and-mortar sporting goods store, in cash, 100% anonymously? Buy 500 rounds of ammunition every week; within a year, you will have 26,000 rounds of ammunition, and not even Lautenberg’s idiotic bill will be able to tell the police a bloody thing about you. In the end, this bill (the specifics of which we will get to momentarily) is just as stupid as the 10-round magazine amendment – why ten rounds in magazines, why 1000 rounds of ammo from the internet? Why not one and 100?

Finally, every competitive shooter in the country had better get used to being "report[ed] … to law enforcement". The buy ammunition by the gorramed pallet, and for good reason too. And speaking of good reasons, every single recreational shooter I know of purchases ammunition by the thousands-of-rounds – most ammo is packaged in bulk in that fashion, most ammo is cheaper when purchased in bulk, and it simply makes maintaining your inventory easier. Which leads us to the obvious conclusion: should this bill become law, we all must purchase ammunition in lots of at least a thousand rounds. Why? To flood the system with our names, making sorting and data-mining damned near impossible.

Now, let us take a break and think about a few things before we delve into the few "specifics" about this bill I was able to dig up.

The Aurora murderer allegedly purchased somewhere around 6000 rounds of ammunition from the internet. Through the course of the mass shooting, an AR-15 was used until its Betamag jammed (though pictures seem to indicate a mag change may have happened, if the 100-round magazine was used at all), a shotgun was employed, and two Glock .40 handguns were used. Assume, for the sake of argument, that the 100-round drum was emptied, the 30-round magazine pictured was also expended, the shotgun was emptied, and both handguns were depleted, and assume the murderer performed no magazine reloads (under the assumption he was too busy dealing with New York Reloads) – that puts us at a maximum number of expended rounds of 100 + 30 + 7 + 15 + 15 = 167. So if it "only" takes <200 rounds to murder 12 people and wound another 58, why do we care about >1000-round purchases? Seems we should be regulating >100-round purchases.

In reality, it is the guy who buys just the one gun, a few magazines, and enough ammunition to fill them that would arguably concern me the most; just like people who go to the range by themselves, rent a gun, and buy all of one box of ammunition, there is the distinct possibility they only "need" that much material to get done what they want to get done. Does this mean I think all ammunition sales should be regulated? Of course not; I am just pointing out the inconsistency of the "gun control" extremists’ position.

So about those specifics…

The Stop Online Ammunition Sales Act works through four components:

· It requires anyone selling ammunition to be a licensed dealer.

And let me guess how much that "licensing" will cost? Or how much of a protcological exam from the BATFE it will entail? In any case, say good-bye to small-time ammo fabricators, custom loaders, experimental shops, and so forth…

· It requires ammunition buyers who are not licensed dealers to present photo identification at the time of purchase, effectively banning the online or mail order purchase of ammo by regular civilians.

Well, that is pretty much a straight-up lie to begin with, and a horrible Personally-Identifiable Information problem as well. The lie comes from the notion that you cannot provide photo identification at the time of purchase; multiple online ammunition sellers request that you send them a picture of your driver’s license to prove that you are, in fact, over 18 or 21, or a copy of your C&R FFL to allow you access to the "dealer" side of their house. However, having to send information containing your full name, address, date of birth, driver’s license number, and photograph is a blatant violation of privacy, and represents a hellacious filing problem for ammo retailers, especially should their databases ever be hacked and that information get loose.

For Heaven’s sake, I can purchase legitimately radioactive uranium ore from Amazon (the reviews are hilarious) without even so much as a "by your leave"; requiring ID for ammo sales is just ludicrous.

And, of course, there is tremendous irony in requiring ID for ammunition sales, but not for voting. I can guarantee you the Obama Administration has been responsible for more deaths than every single firearm I have used or bullet I own or have fired (and that counts the milsurp rifles I own that may have whacked the occasional Nazi).

· It requires licensed ammunition dealers to maintain records of the sale of ammunition.

This particular clause amuses the hell out of me; the federal government is prohibited, by federal law, from keeping records or registries of firearm purchases (even though everyone knows the ATF Form 4473s are nothing but a back-door registry). The solution? Track ammunition, and have the sellers do it, not the government. You may not be able to tell exactly what kind of firearm a person owns by their ammo purchasing habits, but you can get a pretty good idea, and if these dealers maintain their records, you can always subpoena them, or make it a requirement of their "license" to turn them in every X years for "safe storage".

· It requires licensed ammunition dealers to report the sale of more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition to an unlicensed person within any five consecutive business days.

Why do I see a bright-and-shining future for ammunition packed in 7×7 boxes (rather than the 5×10 that is prevalent now) should this law come to pass? 20 of those into a crate, and you have 980 rounds, and as long as you buy only one a week, no one will ever know, which is why arbitrary numbers like "10" or "1000" or whatever are just completely idiotic.

I have already touched on how flooding the system would be both inevitable and beneficial, but also bear in mind that this is yet another registry, only a quicker version than the previous one…

Thankfully, Our Glorious President’s reaction to this recent, overreaching bill has been less than encouraging… for Lautenberg and his authoritarian buddies:

"I haven’t seen the specific piece of legislation that has been offered up today," spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at the daily press briefing. "But as that and other pieces of legislation make their way through the legislative process, we’ll evaluate them."

I would expect a sitting President to "evaluate" any "piece of legislation" that makes it past a certain point in the House or Senate; in other words, Josh basically told Frankie to get in line.

Which brings us to the real point of this post – the surprisingly-appropriately-named Stop Online Ammunition Sales Act still has to make it through both houses of Congress, so contact your duly-elected representatives now and express to them that their opposition to it is strongly recommended. You and I both know Obama would sign this bill if it hit his desk, so it is up to us to ensure it does not.

Oh, and Frankie and Carolyn? In the past two days, I have purchased 4200 rounds of ammunition from three different retailers on the internet. Why? Because f*ck you.