Sen. Ronald Ramsey, author of SB 12
Related Articles
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See Part One GA Bills: HB 873 Freedom of Choice and Security Act
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See Part Two GA Bills: HB 819, A bill exempting you from public gatherings
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See Part Three GA Bills: HB 615, A bill repealing the public gathering law
- See Part Five GA Bills The Common Sense Lawful Carry Act
Under SB 12, you could go to jail for possessing the ammunition you have right now.
This is Part Four in a series about bills pending in the current session of the General Assembly that affect your right to bear arms. Today, the focus is on the worst bill filed this session, and below are some solid recommendations on what you can do to make sure that the sponsor is not around next session to file similar bills.
Senator Ronald B. Ramsey Sr. (D-43, DeKalb and Rockdale) is the author of SB 12, which seeks to ban all ammunition in Georgia that is not encoded with tiny little numbers etched onto the base of the bullet providing a unique identifier for each round. It sets up a bureaucracy to register each round of ammunition and a new tax on each round of ammunition to fund the burdensome tracking process (although it is doubtful whether the General Assembly can segregate funds for any special purpose rather than sending it into the General Fund).
SB 12 includes all handgun ammunition "notwithstanding the fact that the ammunition may also be used in some rifles." Possession of uncoded ammunition is a crime.
(a) On and after January 1, 2010, any person who knowingly manufactures or causes to be manufactured, imports into this state for sale or personal use, keeps for sale or offers for sale, or sells, gives, or lends any handgun ammunition that is not coded pursuant to this part shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.(b) On and after January 1, 2010, any person who knowingly possesses any handgun ammunition that is not coded pursuant to this part shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
For those who do not know, a misdemeanor in Georgia means that, should you commit this terribly heinous crime against your fellow Georgian comrades, you get to spend an entire year in jail and pay a $1,000 fine. SB 12 makes no exceptions for anybody in possession of ammunition, even law enforcement unless it is for investigation of a crime. Of course, this is a good thing, since gun control laws ought to be applied equally to everybody, even law enforcement. If it is a good law to apply to a peaceable Georgian citizen, then it is a good law to apply to a Georgia police officer. If it is a bad law to apply to a Georgia police officer, then the law ought not to apply to a free Georgia citizen. The bill does make exceptions for out of state law enforcement officers, but only while they are actually performing duties in this state, and military troops on duty.
Upon reading the bill, it becomes blatantly obvious that a microscopic code etched onto the base of a bullet is going to be impossible to observe, since the base of the bullet is concealed in loaded ammunition, being inserted into a brass cartridge waiting to be fired. SB 12 has thought of a way to solve this baffling predicament, short of asking police officers to carry a bullet puller with them on patrol to disassemble your carry ammunition and check for etched codes. The solution is registration! The bill mandates that all handgun ammunition must be registered. The manufacturer must register with the state of Georgia Department of Public Safety, and one can accurately predict what this registration requirement will do to the ammunition supply in this state when out of state bullet manufacturers decide not to sell in Georgia.
The vendor must also register, whether it is WalMart or your local gun shop. Of course, the buyer, that is you, must also register. The seller must record and keep on file your name, driver's license number, date of birth, and any other information that the Department of Public Safety, at its sole discretion and future judgment, may require.
Fans of tax credits will be pleased to note that there is a tax credit in the bill for purchase of encoding equipment by bullet manufacturers.
The Bill: You may read the entire text of SB 12 for yourself here.
Author: Sen. Ramsey (D-43)
Cosponsors: Not a single one, fortunately. Sen. Ramsey stands alone in his effort to curtail your enjoyment of shooting.
Analysis: This bill will increase the cost of ammunition. Although the tax imposed is only .005 cents per bullet, the effect of this bullet serialization requirement on the ammunition supply cannot be overstated. SB 12 has a retroactive provision (starting yesterday) that imposes a flat ban on ammunition without serial numbers. You would be a criminal for selling or possessing such ammunition starting yesterday if SB 12 passes. You, and millions of other Georgians would have to dispose of that criminal ammunition and purchase new, encoded ammunition. Since there is no such ammunition available in the market, the prices would spike off the charts. While advocates of "price gouging" laws are unable to understand simple supply and demand concepts, the effects are not too difficult to trace when considering SB 12. If you think your local ammunition store has bare shelves now, imagine trying to find .380 ammunition in a post-SB 12 world.
Remember, if you sell your own ammunition, then you are the vendor. SB 12 makes no exception to the registration requirements for sales to family members and friends. What if you are caught on video handing some ammunition to your shooting buddy at the range? SB 12 even includes a provision requiring you to register a loan of ammunition to a friend.
The department shall provide by rule and regulation for the submission of the information required to be maintained pursuant to this Code section concerning all sales, loans, and transfers of handgun ammunition to, from, or withing this state to the department for inclusion in the ammunition coding system data base.
Police officers would be unable to train. When ammunition prices skyrocketed in 2008 amid the soaring commodities market for metals used in manufacturing ammunition components, many police agencies put off or curtailed training. Many private Georgia citizens did as well. See Atlanta ammunition supply is severely constrained.
According to the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturing Institute, it would take three weeks to manufacture a cartridge that takes less than one day now. Any predictions on what this would do to the price of ammunition?
Status: SB 12 is currently assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee and is not, as of this writing, scheduled for a hearing.
What you can do about it: First, contact the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Preston W. Smith, and Lt. Governor Casey Cagle to tell them you want SB 12 stopped.
Second, make sure the author of the bill is not around next session to propose legislation restricting your right to bear arms. A member of the effective grass roots activist group, GeorgiaCarry.Org, has stepped up to run for Sen. Ramsey's seat. Diana Williams is fed up, and she is now a candidate for the Georgia Senate in District 43. Ms. Williams is not the sort to feed voters the typical platitudes about how she "respects the Second Amendment." Rather, she makes a clear promise to Georgians:
If elected to this senate seat, I will do everything in my power to further our right to carry in the state of Georgia.
She understands that "to . . . bear" means to carry. Diana Williams's web site is accessible by clicking here. As with all candidates, she needs donations and volunteers. While most people never consider getting involved with political races outside of their own districts, in this case there is such a stark contrast of viewpoints considering your right to bear arms that this race is important no matter where you reside in Georgia. Consider sending Ms. Williams money for her campaign or volunteering to help her. This is how people get elected, and Georgia needs candidates that will act to make the government respect your right to bear arms. If the election can also rid Georgia of the author of the worst right to bear arms bill of the session, then the victory would be twice as valuable. Contact Ms. Williams.
Comments
Has anyone ever wondered what will happen to that encoding once the bullet is fired and strikes some object? Ever seen what a bullet looks like after hitting a solid object? How are you going to retrieve numbers from a mushroomed bullet? And what if the ammo is stolen? Are cops going to spend their time running around chasing stolen ammo?
This bill is absolutely outrageous. Just as stated in the article, in order to truly enforce this law, officers would have to disassemble ammunition on-site to check for a code, and my guess is that none would even care to enforce it when responsible citizens are involved; therefore, I doubt it would bear much except when used in criminal shooting convictions. Still, it opens the door for further rights restrictions and possibly even quota-type behavior on the part of irresponsible law enforcement agencies, i.e. going to a shooting range and attempting to gather convictions from patrons blowing away non-coded ammo.
This is a huge step in the wrong direction. Thank God it has no other supporters. I'm afraid enough as it is to shoot my target ammo. Things needn't always get worse before they get better.
This bill is just plain wrong! Everything that is American gets thrown out the window.
Can you imagine what the MARTA police would do with this kind of power? You would probably have to unload all of the ammo in your carry weapon just to prove you are legal. No more of that old antiquated, "innocent until proven guilty" thing. And, some federal judge would rule that they had probable cause to do so.
This bill must be stopped in its tracks and this senator needs to be replaced with a competent person who understands the meaning of the word freedom!
Progressive (read: Communist) filth like this one Ronald Ramsey are really crawling out from their dark holes now that their kindred spirits are in charge in D.C. When are American people going to wake up and reject these cretins?! These folks don't care what it is, as long as they can get their names on some bill or law that restricts or destroys liberty, freedom, or our Constitution in some manner. The destruction of the Second Amendment is first & foremost on their agenda. Meanwhile they & their constituants speak of freedom & liberty & equality, all the while seeking to destroy those things for each & everyone.
I'll return my unmarked ammo -- at 1100 feet per second
WE HAVE TO GET THESE MORONS OUT OF OFFICE BEFORE THEY KILL US..... I MEAN RIGHT NOW.. THEY ARE NOT DOING THE JOB WE ELECTED THEM TO DO..... SO WE HAVE TO GET RID OF THE "CANCER" IN ALL GOVERNMENT.... FROM THE LOCALS UP TO THE PRESIDENT......
This is one reason I've been buying more bullet-casting equipment.
'Bout time
You won't say that cheap talk in the bullpen of the county jail.
You be dead when I hit your head.
Come-on people, I cannot believe all this drivel about numbers on bullets. Are you all myopic or what? This isn't about serial numbers on bullets, it is about REGISTERING your ammunition which will be followed by REGISTERING your GUNS. Stop it NOW, we sure don't want that thinking over here...
The Bill was sent to committee almost a year ago, and has gone nowhere. It will go nowhere. This article is moot and will only serve to stir up the anti-gun tribes.
dumb savages why did we give them the right to vote anyway?
This is an old bill that will go no where. This garbage has been intrioduced in several states and went nowhere. Senator Ramsey is a attorney and should be a tad brighter. I will carry the same type ammo in my Kimber, that I have carried for years on my next trip through Georgia.
When the State of California used Ronnie Barrett's rifle as a poster child to diplay the "evils" of big bore rifles, he responded by refusing to service any already owned by the state or sell them any new ones. If the ammunition makers refused to sell any new ammo to the police departments in Georgia this insanity would go away rather quickly.
The only reason for registering ammo is as a step toward disarming the public. The ONLY reason anyone would want to do that is because they plan on doing something that people might want to shoot them for. Just wondering...
"Of course, this is a good thing, since gun control laws ought to be applied equally to everybody, even law enforcement."
Not true. Since they're our servants, and an arm of the same entity with the discretion to make the law, the law should be enforced with MORE vigor and LESS leniency towards them.
Is this guy serious ?
maybe next we'll have to register our kitchen knives so when we
cut a steak it'll leave a serial number for the PETA folks so
they can cry about a cow or chicken !!
Ok, so I get the worries about ultimate confiscation (American Rifleman used to scare me too), but really--IF we could accurately trace bullets back to their owners, wouldn't that benefit outweigh the marginal tax and inconvenience?
C'mon, guys. I know it would be a pain to have to sell all your unmarked ammo to your buddies in Alabama (actually, such a law should include a provision to compensate affected ammo owners), but really--so long as such a measure didn't lead to confiscation--and with the recent Supreme Court ruling on the 2nd Amendment, it most certainly will not lead to confiscation--how about tolerating a little lead accountability in the name of public safety? Good guys could still protect themselves and their families without worry when justified, and bad guys would be easier to catch and therefore think twice about shooting...
That's a trade-off even an avid shooter and concealed carry permit holder like myself is willing to accept.
I'm truly sorry, Mat Deaton, but many of us have spent our whole lives making "trade-offs". Somehow the "trade-off" always involves the pro-gun people giving up something. To date, the only thing we have ever received in return is a request that we "trade-off" something we were left after the last "trade-off".
No mas!
Not interested!
No thank you!
Molon Labe!
When anyone mentions "gun control," it makes me cringe with disbelief. It is impossible for me to understand why people want to (and might some day) take away my right to gun ownership. They defend their cases by using examples of school shootings and gang violence; this is unremarkably insane to me. The idea that today's politicians could change the laws of our great land by using the examples of a few misguided youngsters brings back into view other leaders who have done the same. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Idi Amin, Mao Tse-tung, and Pol Pot were powerful tyrants. After taking power, these men took all guns from the civilian population. Our own government has been taking the necessary steps to abolish the second amendment. Owning a gun is a right not a privilege. We, as citizens, have to protect our rights to gun ownership so we can protect ourselves if necessary.
The point of the bill is to reduce stock piles of ammunition. Totalitarians are well aware that Americans possess large amounts of surplus military ammunition,and they don't like it.
Since all of my ammo would be illegal, I invite Sen. Ramsey and his supporters to allow me to turn it all in to them...one round at a time, at 2650fps.
Every Senator, every member of Congress, the Attorney General, the President,...etc, takes the same oath, part of which is a vow to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
If your Senator/Congressional Representative, etc... doesn't do that, the answer is simple... VOTE THIER TREASONOUS ASSES OUT OF OFFICE.
Get off yer butt, write letters make phone calls... get involved!!!!
I just sent out emails to Lt. Gov and others - I've had enough! This bill is so outrageous that it defies logic! As a GA resident and owner of 3 companies,I have been what you call a staunch Republican all my life. However, given the past historic 12 months of our republic decline under the leadership of our current President as well as past Republicans – I am for the first time in 30 years ready to jump ship and go independent and vote against a Republican & Democrat. I can’t emphasis enough the level of involvement I will give and money I will spend to support freedom and the U.S. Constitution from people like Sen. Ronald Ramsey. I expect the Republican’s voted into office to aggressively reject and dispose of these types of Bills from the far left and their supporters. To do anything otherwise will in effect awaken me & thousands of others like me – the real sleeping giants that are too busy working to create prosperity in this great State and Country.
Voted in, but he and others like him need voted out ASAP.
There is no place in a free America for such senators as Ramsey.
It is strange that the politicians and officials here in the US cannot seem to learn from the policies of countries such as Switzerland. Instead, so many think as did the morons that passed
Prohibition laws in the early 20th century. How smart was that!
Thanks for telling the truth Mike L..You are dead on.
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