Well I did some digging, here's a copy of the speech Kerry gave pushing "The Ammunition Safety Act of 1997". While it doesn't pertain to primers, it does shed light on how these sneaky SOBs plan.
I apologise for the format. I highlighted anything I thought important.
I'll see if I can find any other examples.
It should be clear that if this law had gone into effect, it is doubtful any "reloading loopholes" would be let to slip through. "Armor Piercing" hard cast .454 Casull anybody?
From:
http://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/record/1997/1997_S03027.pdf
and
http://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/record/1997/1997_S03028.pdf
"By Mr. KERRY:
S. 553. A bill to regulate ammunition,
and for other purposes; to the Committee
on the Judiciary.
THE AMMUNITION SAFETY ACT OF 1997
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, no gun
works without a bullet. Yet for no good
reason, Congress in the early 1980’s—
which were marked by terribly troubling
increases in gun-caused fatalities
and injuries—repealed laws that regulate
ammunition. And while a background
check is required to stop felons
from purchasing guns, no such background
check is required to stop them
from buying ammunition for guns they
already may have. In the meantime,
bullets are getting meaner and more
deadly. Law enforcement officers know
all too well the danger they face each
and every time a gun is pointed at
them.
Advances in technology only promise
to make matters worse. When a large
percentage of gun-related deaths involve
handguns, and a larger percentage
of gun-related deaths is accidental,
it is not sensible to allow unrestricted
manufacture, sale, and use of new,
more destructive bullets. In 1994, 157
police officers and State troopers were
killed in this country. Five lost their
lives in my home State of Massachusetts.
Additionally, more than 200 people
die from the accidental use of handguns
every year. In 1992 alone, 233 accidental
deaths occurred because of
handguns. This included 6 babies, 36
children under the age of 14, and 8 senior
citizens, 2 of whom were over the
age of 80.
In light of these sad and disturbing
facts, there is no good reason to permit
ever more dangerous bullets to come
on the market. And there is every good
reason to keep off our streets and out
of our homes bullets that supply handguns
with the approximate destructive
power of assault weapons.
That is why I am today reintroducing
the Ammunition Safety Act that I introduced
previously in the 104th Congress.
The Ammunition Safety Act of
1997 does two things: it reestablishes
reasonable regulations for the sale of
handgun ammunition, and it outlaws
all exceedingly destructive handgun
ammunition by expanding and updating
the ban on armor-piercing handgun
ammunition. This bill would provide a
weapon for law enforcement to crack
down on crime and would make ordinary
people safer from handgun violence
and accidental shootings. The
bill accomplishes these goals in three
steps.
First, the bill reinstates and
strengthens ammunition control language
that Congress repealed during
the Reagan era.
The bill would require
dealers of handgun ammunition to be
licensed by the Federal Government
and would restrict interstate sale and
transportation of handgun ammunition
to licenced dealers. The bill also would
double the maximum penalties for sale
of handgun ammunition to and possession
of such ammunition by felons and
persons under age 21.
Second, the bill would apply Brady
Bill provisions to handgun ammunition.
To prevent the sale of handgun
ammunition to felons,
every purchaser
of ammunition would have to pass a
background check before ammunition
could be sold to him or her. These regulations
would be a vital tool for law enforcement
to use in investigating
crime, and would provide equity to a
system that currently monitors and restricts
the flow of guns, but,
inexplicably, not of ammunition.
Third, the bill expands the definition
of illegal armor-piercing handgun ammunition
to include any new conceivable
kind of armor-piercing bullet. The
bill establishes a new method to accomplish
this goal. To date, no law has
been able to effectively ban all armorpiercing
bullets. It is impossible to ban
what cannot be defined because vague
laws are constitutionally void—and
definitions to date have failed to cover
all armor-piercing bullets. All that existing
law does is ban bullets based on
the materials of which they are made.
Consequently, bullets made of hard
metal are illegal in the hope that this
definition will cover most armor-piercing
bullets.
But the existing composition-
based definitions fail to prevent
the sale of certain bullets that pierce
armor like large lead bullets that are
not intended for handguns but can be
used in them.
This bill calls on the Treasury Department
to define major armor-piercing
bullets. Fulfilling this new responsibility
would entail four steps:
First, within 1 year, the Treasury Department
is charged to determine a
standard test to ascertain the destructive
capacity of any and all bullets.
This will probably result in something
along the lines of a system that has
been employed for some testing purposes
that calculates the width times
the depth of the hole a projectile bores
in a block of gelatin when it is shot
with no extra powder from a standard
handgun at a distance of 10 feet.
Second, utilizing this destructive capabilities
rating test, the Treasury Department
would then test and determine
the destructive rating of every
bullet available on the market.
Third, all manufacturers of bullets
for sale in the United States would be
required to cover the costs incurred by
the Treasury Department in this testing.
Fourth, the bill would make it illegal
to manufacture, sell, import, use, or
possess any bullet—existing or newly
invented—that has a destructive rating
equal to or higher than the armorpiercing
threshold. This would be in addition
to the existing compositionbased
definition.
This bill contains reasonable exemptions.
Those bullets exclusively manufactured
for law enforcement would be
exempt; so would be those bullets designed
for sporting purpose that Congress
specifically exempts by law; and
so would be those bullets that are proven
by their manufacturer at its expense
to have a destructive rating below the
armor-piercing threshold.
By setting the legal standard at the
armor-piercing threshold, all armorpiercing
bullets would be illegal. And
there is an additional advantage to setting
a legal threshold in this fashion:
The threshold would ban more than
armor-piercing bullets.
It would ban
any bullet invented in the future that
explodes on impact, that turns to
shrapnel, that does things today’s technology
cannot yet fathom, or that by
any other means is exceptionally destructive.
Setting a legal standard this way
draws a hard and fast line between
those bullets currently on the market
and future bullets that do more damage
that we can image today.
This bill
says that America is satisfied that the
bullets of today are dangerous enough,
and America will tolerate no greater
likelihood of accidental death as a result
of new bullets.
This bill recognizes the fact that regulating
only guns is naive. Those who want to kill or injure others will always
be able to find guns, but they
must purchase ammunition. When they
do this, this bill will be there to stop
them.
Mr. President, I recognize that there
is a limit to what the Government can
do to stop gun violence and accidental
death. But today, our Government is
shirking its responsibility. This bill is
a vital step toward ensuring that our
Government does what is necessary to
save lives.
The law enforcement community and
the public will never again have to
react to advertisements like the one
for the famous Rhino bullet. This ad
states: ‘‘The Rhino inflicts a wound of
8 inches in diameter. Each of these
fragments becomes lethal shrapnel and
is hurled into vital organs, lungs, circulatory
system components, the heart
and other tissues. The wound channel
is catastrophic. Death is nearly instantaneous.’’
If this bill is enacted, opportunistic
manufacturers like the one who created
the Rhino bullet will have nothing
to gain from advertising the dramatic
innovations of their bullets. If an advertisement
claims that a new bullet is
unusually destructive, the public will
know that the advertisement is either
an outright lie or that the product is
illegal. Either way, the public will
know in advance that no such bullet
will ever hit the street, and the public
will have no cause for alarm.
When this bill becomes law, no new
bullets that are more dangerous than
those of today will make it to market.
When this bill becomes law, bullets
now available for purchase end up in
the wrong hands.
This bill is a solid step toward returning
sanity and safety to our Nation’s
streets and households. The Government
has no greater responsibility
than to work toward this goal. I welcome
the support of colleagues who
share my concerns, as many do. I urge
them to join me in sponsoring this legislation.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent
that the full text of the legislation
appear in the RECORD."