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A group in Washington is promoting an initiative to reduce gun crime by using laser-etched bullets to track shooters. According to their website, the data will only be used for legitimate investigations (no datamining) and secured with "recursive verification" features (sounds like a blockchain). Washington state already requires ammunition purchasers to produce valid ID when making purchases. Googling reveals that previous efforts by state legislatures to enact similar legislation have been torpedoed by the gun lobby. Initiatives are not subject to lobbying, so it should be interesting to see how the opposition tackles this campaign.
http://dosomethingwa.org
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-guns-ammunition-idUSBRE90J02K20130120
http://igg.me/at/dosomethingwa
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Wednesday February 10 2016, @09:02AM
Don't underestimate the power of barcoding, it's what enabled the "retail revolution".
How many food cans are produced/sold annually? Does it stop a recall if contamination is discovered in some of them?
This is to show that the immigrants are much less dangerous than bullets, isn't it?
If bullet tracking would be a solution (a big if, because it's not a solution. It's only an instance of the politician syllogism) then...
...If noone can do it, NSA can.
And it would be a better use of money, given the rate of deaths because of crime vs the one due to terrorism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday February 10 2016, @11:04AM
Don't underestimate the power of barcoding, it's what enabled the "retail revolution".
How many food cans are produced/sold annually? Does it stop a recall if contamination is discovered in some of them?
All the cans of the same type have the same barcode. Most also have a batch code, which is generally either a days production, or an entire production run.
When there is a recall, it is entire batches, not a single can.
I suppose that you could use the same code on all the bullets in each box of ammo, but you would still have a huge amount of data to track.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Thursday February 11 2016, @01:42PM
Your comment got me thinking of an easy way to defeat this. If one were to simply swap the contents of a few boxes of bullets (assuming it isn't the 500 count box of .22lr which would be a bitch to do in store) the system would become very unreliable. If I lived in WA and this became law I would do it mostly as an act of civil protest even if I didn't buy any ammo. Unless it is match grade ammo I don't think I have ever seen it shrink wrapped, and I doubt the military surplus stuff that comes in a spam can is going to have the number etched. Also people in WA under this bill would no longer be able to buy surplus ammo which can be very cheap and pretty reasonable quality if you are looking to sort a gun out, or waste ammo on paper.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone