You Can’t Polish a Turd

GOC has been fighting the microstamping mess ever since it raised it’s ugly head in California nearly 20 years ago.

“You can’t polish a turd” is likely one of my favorite sayings ever – especially when it pertains to some knucklehead piece of legislation that needs fixing.  Again. And again.

One would think that the brainiacs running the legislative shows across the country would think things through before they try to get something into statute.  But anywhere elected officials gather, you’ll find their overwhelming desire to take a half-baked idea, slap their name on it and get that baby into law.

Current case in point is AB 1478 by Democrat Assemblyman David Chiu.  Last year, he introduced legislation (AB 2847) that supposedly “eased compliance” of the original bad microstamping law (AB 1471/2007 by Feuer-D) by mandating newly developed semiauto pistols have microstamped characters on just one interior place of the firearm rather than two.  Like a single use of unachievable technology is somehow better than two

But now there’s AB 1478 – an alleged “clean-up” measure to AB 2487 but with a big fat change:  Chiu’s no longer “easing compliance” as per his bill of last year, but upping the number of microstamping locations back to two or more.  Who is whispering in his guy’s ear?  He needs to make up his mind.

Microstamping started out as a bad idea and it’s still a bad idea – hence, “you can’t polish a turd.”

Just this week, the National Shooting Sports Foundation published “The Moronic Myths Of Microstamping.” They are right on the money, and make some key points on how defective the methodology is:

  • “Microstamping is unproven and unworkable technology….Gun control politicians push the “technology” to “reduce gun violence.”
  • Forensic firearms examiner Professor George Kristova wrote, “Implementing this technology will be much more complicated than burning a serial number on a few parts and dropping them into firearms being manufactured.” The University of California at Davis, hardly a gun rights redoubt, reported“At the current time it is not recommended that a mandate for implementation of this technology be made.”
  • A National Academy of Science study concluded that “the durability and survivability of markings on the bullet are still major concerns. Bullets would also be likely to suffer the corrosive effects of blood and other substances.” An Iowa State University study stated that “legitimate questions exist related to the technical aspects, production costs and database management associated with microstamping that should be addressed before wide scale implementation is legislatively mandated.”

GOC has been fighting the microstamping mess ever since it raised it’s ugly head in California nearly 20 years ago, and in those early days, worked with former Assemblyman and 2nd Amendment warrior Jay La Suer to demonstrate exactly how unreliable microstamping is.  La Suer invited the bill’s author and sponsors to a gun range to see a firsthand demonstration on how microstamping could be easily defeated with simple household items (such as a nail file).  Although the demonstration was scheduled several times, it never took place as the opponents were more interested in pushing bad science rather than learning something.  Regardless of the fallibility of the technology, the anti-gunners were successful in ultimately getting a bill to the Governor in 2007, as noted above.

GOC is obviously in strong opposition to AB 1478 and will make certain the Legislature knows it;  to keep tabs on what is happening with this and other legislation we are tracking, follow along on our website here.  Unfortunately, anti-gun zealots are making headway with microstamping on the national level, too.  Rest assured our partner Gun Owners of America is ready to take on this battle.

1 Comment

  1. Eliot on March 23, 2021 at 5:57 pm

    These fools can’t help themselves, now they are dragging the police into their unicorn fantasy.
    https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB876