Comedian Chris Rock once quipped, “The way to stop the killing is to make bullets cost $5,000 each” I think he was on to something.
I published this original article almost two years ago, but after this last week in El Paso and Dayton, I felt the need to add to it and try again, for whatever it’s worth.
In November of 2017 I wrote that some 26 church-going people in Texas had been gunned down by a madman using a weapon that used 5.56 millimeter (also known as .223 caliber) military style ammunition. The month before that, another madman in Las Vegas used the same ammunition, plus 7.62 millimeter and a few other types to kill 58 and injure more than 500. Before that it was the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando and 49 dead (9 millimeter and 7.62 millimeter), Virginia Tech with 32 dead, (.223 and .22 calibers) and Sandy Hook Elementary with 27 dead, 20 of them children (223 caliber). The list is endless, including Columbine’s 13 dead (9 millimeter), Aurora, Colorado, 12 dead (.40 caliber and .223 caliber) and on and on. In most cases, very large quantities of legally purchased ammunition were part of the story.
Since that time, add these to the list………….
- May, 2018 10 dead/ 14 wounded in Sante Fe, Texas (.38 cal. and shotgun)
- October, 2018 Pittsburg, PA synagogue, 11 dead/6 wounded (.223 and 357 semi automatic pistols)
- November, 2018, Thousand Oaks, CA, 13 dead/12 wounded (.45 semi automatic pistols)
- February, 2019, Aurora, IL 6 dead/6 wounded (pistol, caliber unknown)
- May, 2019, Virginia Beach, VA 13 dead/4 wounded (.45 ACP)
- July, 2019 Gilroy, CA 4 dead/12 wounded (Automatic rifle, 7.62MM)
- August, 2019, El Paso, TX 22 dead/24 wounded (Automatic rifle, 7.62MM)
- August, 2019,m Dayon, OH 10 dead/27 wounded (.223)
We all know the drill: prayers for the families of the victims, endless speculation from the cable news for days, interviews with the killer’s neighbors, protestations from the NRA that “guns don’t kill people” and then wrapping themselves in a misinterpreted meaning of the 2nd amendment. Within two weeks it’s on to the next story.
And on the South and West sides of Chicago, it’s a daily dose of shootings, mostly 9 millimeter and .380 caliber and .22 caliber ammunition.
Ok, I get it. No politician who wants to get re-elected is going to take on the NRA. No one part of the country agrees with the rest of the country on just what form of gun control, if any, will make a difference. The NRA will insist it’s all a matter of fixing mental health. A hunter in Tennessee just won’t see it the same way as an accountant in Milwaukee. And you can buy guns of all types with minimal controls at any level.
There are an estimated 300 million handguns, rifles, and shotguns in private hands in the United States today. Estimates of ammunition purchased each year are between 10-12 billion (that’s with a “b”) rounds. We are awash in firearms, bullets and shells. And bodies.
There is a solution out there and I’m not the first to suggest it, but I might be the first one to lay out the steps of the plan. The solution: treat the most deadly ammunition the same way we treat powerful drugs that require a doctor’s prescription. Start to choke off access to the most lethal ammo.
It might take two years to seriously dry up the supply of the most deadly rounds, but it would work. Maybe we can’t stop the guns, (hell, we couldn’t even keep from repealing the automatic weapons ban!) but we can sure limit their destructive power by implementing this plan. Guns are protected by the NRA and they are very durable items. They tend to hang around for years. Ammunition, however, is an expendable, and is not directly addressed under the 2nd amendment. Because it is expended, you can impact its availability.
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Here for your consideration is my plan. I welcome your critiques, arguments, and comments.
1.Dry up the supply. Recognize that certain type of ammunition need to be controlled, because they are overwhelmingly used in homicides and mass shootings. Get them off the retail market, both in stores and online. They include:
- 9 MM
- 7.62 MM
- .223 CAL
- .380 CAL
- .45 CAL ACP
- .22 CAL
This means that within a defined period of time (90-180 days), these ammunitions come off the retail shelves and the Internet. This also means that all other types of ammunition are unaffected by this law. You can buy all the shotgun shells, 30.06 rounds, etc. you want (subject to local regs) for hunting, sporting clays, whatever. These rounds aren’t the problem; they mostly kill deer, birds, and clay pigeons. Happy hunting.
2. Exempt the military and recognized, taxpayer-supported law enforcement from this plan.
3. Buy it all back. Task the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Bureau (ATF) to purchase from suppliers who need to purge their shelves of the munitions at full retail value. These bullets are now part of the controlled resale process and available for resale.
4. Make it financially attractive to dump your privately held ammo. Allow private gun owners six months to turn in their munitions in these categories to the ATF for a premium price (5x retail value initially, dropping to 4x, 3x, 2x, each month.) The ATF destroys these rounds. The premium is designed to discourage hoarding ammunition and to reduce the regulated rounds to a minimum.
5. Pick the agency. Charge the ATF with establishing an easily referenced national database of gun owners with FOID number, including all guns using these restricted ammunitions by serial number, and amount on hand for each weapon. Require owners of these weapons to log on, add their guns by serial number and declare how many rounds they own for each. (They’ll quickly figure out that they don’t have to be honest about how many rounds they have on hand so they can buy a few more.) If you’re not on the registry, no ammo for you.
6. Dangerous ammo is available only at ranges. License the future sales of all restricted ammunitions to licensed local shooting range operators. In other words, these munitions may only be purchased at the range for use at the range. Brass is turned in and weighed against purchased amount, much as has been done on military ranges for years. You want to expend 2,000 rounds at the range, great. You will need to buy your rounds there and to turn in your brass casings for a weight check prior to leaving. Rounds-to-casing weight charts already exist.
7. Assuming most gun owners will claim no ammo on hand when they register their guns, allow up to twenty rounds to be purchased (again, available at local ranges) per owner per weapon, amount logged onto the owners’ account at time of issue. You can take these home, but expended casings will be required for resupply of this ammunition. So if you fire 10 rounds from your doorway at a home invader, illegal immigrant, neighbor who came over to borrow your lawn mower, ISIS infiltrator, or Trumpian fantasy, you will need to gather up your brass if you want to replace your ammo. Assuming, of course, you don’t go to jail.
8. Build into the database the ability to transfer or sell such weapons as long as the new owner becomes listed on the database. Rounds must be transferred with ownership and logged to the new owner.
9. Create severe legal and financial penalties for anyone caught trafficking, reselling, or hoarding restricted ammunitions after the first year. Task the ATF to bear down on gun shows and the fringe right groups, the most likely offenders. Possibly place a rewards system in place for turning in known hoarders.
10. Don’t sell ammo of any type to any and all on the existing national database of people who shouldn’t buy guns. Merge that group onto the ATF database.
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Here’s what I think would happen…
- Within two years, it would become very difficult to amass 2,000 rounds of the restricted types of ammunition.
- Would hoarding occur? Yes, but it would be largely on the political fringes, the paranoid Americans building compounds, who would now face criminal charges if caught. And it would be off the Internet.
- Would the gang bangers change their ways? Not much. They’re not going to register illegally purchased weapons anyway, but they’ll be a lot less likely to spray “to whom it may concern” rounds across a street, killing Granny in her parlor. And they’ll give each other up for rewards on ammo hoarding. Ask the cops about that one.
- Would a “black market” emerge? It always does, but now you’re going to have to buy from criminals and you might think twice about it. You could go to jail. Lots of folks will think twice about that,
- Will size matter? Not when it comes to magazines, which has been one of the weaker notions of gun control. 30 round magazines would be tough to fill.
- Will ranges want to take part in this? You bet. It will become a lot more profitable business model when you are the only legitimate point of sale for restricted ammo.
- Will it clear the courts? The NRA will fight it, but I think in the end lose. You can still hunt, protect your family, go to ranges to shoot and keep all your guns. That’s pretty American.
If ever there was a time to push such a plan, it is now. So let’s see if somebody in national politics will take up this cause. As in the line from the movie 1776, “Is anybody there? Does anybody care?”