Phill writes
Given the number of gun related homicides in the US it is not unreasonable to require each individual cartridge to be stamped with a serial number and for gun dealers to be required to record each individual purchase.
Phill, as usual, displaying your ignorance? Many of my friends reload spent brass. I realize that you might not get this idea, but guns are a technology that hasn't advanced significantly since 1900 or so, other than maybe lightening things with plastic stocks. (The few innovations that have been tried, like trounds and caseless ammo, haven't ever taken off). The result of this is that a heavy fraction of the people who own guns have the ability to LOAD THEIR OWN AMMUNITON. Indeed, anyone who wants to can do it! Even without a PhD! In fact, lots of cheapskates who like to shoot a lot regularly go out to ranges and sweep up other people's spent brass. If you open up a good magazine for those of us who aren't scared of guns, you will see ads for dozens of inexpensive devices to help you trim and fix cases in a semi-automated way, and to load ammo mostly by turning a crank. BTW, such devices are trivial to make yourself, and plans are readily available. Its all low technology. Were you not totally ignorant of how guns are used, this wouldn't be news to you. Now, on top of that, our ignorant socialist friend seems to forget that brass is not immutable -- that is, that it would take about thirty seconds and an awl would get rid of any serial number you cared to stamp. On an empty case, its even easier. The real key here is of course that idiots going crazy and killing 20 people in a schoolyard kill fewer people than slippery wet floors, and the whole thing is so insignificant that it can be ignored. The drug related killings would go away were drugs legalized, as would a heavy fraction of the petty crime, and most of the rest of the abuses of guns are so tiny in comparison to the legitimate uses as to be insignificant. (Oh, and by the way, Dr. Hallam-Baker -- I consider suicide, which is counted in the HCI "statistics" on gun deaths, to be a perfectly legitimate use of a weapon. Its every person's right to off themselves any time they like by my way of thinking, and you have no right to force people to live against their will any more than you have the right to force them into slavery.) Perry