(GunReports.com) — Despite being backed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and gun-control groups like the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, New York state’s microstamping bill failed to pass the full legislature for the fifth consecutive year, according to Larry Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
The state’s general assembly, which is dominated by downstate, anti-gun urban legislators, did approve the bill on Tuesday by an 85-60 vote. The state senate did not take up the bill on its final day of the legislative session, putting an end to a sneaky backdoor attempt to ban handguns in the Empire State.
The concept of microstamping involves the costly process of micro laser-engraving a unique code on the firing pin of a gun so that when the gun is fired the code is transferred to primer of the cartridge casing. Theoretically, this would allow law enforcement to trace the firearm used in a crime by reading the code on a spent cartridge casing recovered at a crime scene. Several independent, peer-reviewed studies, however, including one by the National Academy of Sciences, have concluded that microstamping is flawed and unreliable, can be easily circumvented in mere seconds by filing down the code using common household items and is even compromised by the wear caused by normal use of the firearm.
Earlier in the week, a Baltimore Sun editorial unwisely suggested that Maryland follow New York’s lead in attempting to adopt microstamping, a suggestion which drew a published response from Jeff Reh, general counsel and vice-general manager at Maryland-based Beretta USA, who noted in his letter that implementing microstamping would be cost prohibitive to both manufacturers and to gun buyers. “The cost of $12 per gun comes from advocates of the technology. Firearm manufacturers estimate the cost at around $200 per gun,” he wrote.
Two firearms companies with manufacturing facilities in New York—Remington and Kimber—have said they would review their commitment to the state if microstamping were passed. Also, if the bill was approved, New York state gun owners would not be able to purchase firearms that were not microstamped, which is why NSSF and others refer to this devious legislation as a gun-ban effort.
