UK headed toward pollen-coated cartridges

[Afy]

The govt in the UK is nuts.

Handguns are illegal to own. So I dont know how this will help or work.
A few weeks ago... they wanted to enact legislation that would carry a mandatory prision sentence for any one caught with a knife over a certain length in a public place. Irrespective of reason... because knives are dangerous and kill people.

Until someone figured out that If you go to buy a bread knife and get stopped by the cops... its off to jail. Next they are going to band hands and feet... because they can be used as deadly weapons as well...:banghead::banghead::banghead:

 

[Skoghund]

33-805 hit the nail on the head with his view on the british people. I say this because i'm English born and bred. I was watching the news from England the other week and they were talking about how they were going to tackle the latest wave of knife crime. The first thing they showed was a police man tipping out a bin of knives handed in at the last amnesty. What i saw was a load of kitchen knives and the like. Knowbody questions these waste of time amnesties.
As for the coated bullets another load of bollocks.

I'm glad i don't live in England any more

 

[ArmedBear]

So wait...

Handguns are illegal in the UK, but they figure that criminals who obtain them will just go down to the local gun shop and buy marked ammo?

 

[everallm]

Lets see, off the top of my head

1. Coating a cartridge with an crystalline, read abrasive coating, film means the barrel becomes worn out in a very short period of time. I assume the vendors will be carrying the cost of replacements for selling an inherently unfit for purpose product. Not to mention product liability insurance when their product causes the first Ka-Boom and death/maiming.

2. I assume the nice folks who came up with this know the draconian laws and restrictions in place in the UK to attempt to acquire a firearms licence and ammunition. The only people this will affect will be the law abiding

3. The only way this will work is if the DNA database is extended to every person in the UK. Of course we trust the government to keep that information secure and inviolate......

4. It's nano size particles folks, unless each batch of cartridges is manufactured, kept and distributed in a P4 or BL4 (read Ebola virus) level containment and package there is inevitable cross contamination rendering the system useless.

5. Speaking of cross contamination, the second more than a handful of these packages have been distributed and used any localised environment will be hopelessly and permanently cross contaminated unless the markers have a built in time based self destruct process.

6. Completely useless if the weapon is a bolt action rifle or a revolver as the rounds will be policed up or not left behind.

7. Want to screw with folks, go to a legitimate target range, grab a handful of used cartridges and seed any crime scene.....

Shall I continue......

 

[Claymore1500]

Yes cross contamination would be a real problem. Can you imagine the workers in the ammo factory trying to keep track of and keeping all the powders seperate to comply with the legislation? Or the machines that would have to be cleaned some way to avoid cross contamination between batches?

To trace to specific purchasers they would also have to use an awful lot of different bio tags, which would require a lot of different batches, and frequent cleaning of machines or worker intensive operations. More workers or labor involved in the creation of ammo means higher ammo costs.

More realisticly, after realizing the cost of doing all of this, can you imagine any ammunition manufacturing company choosing to stay in the bussiness.

I would believe that to be thier agenda, Not catching the bad guys.

Also I will bet they didn't take into account that a brisk walk thru a field of wild flowers could screw up any chance of getting a good sample off of the badguy.

 

[Old Guy]

UK out of Control

Born in Liverpool 1935.

Visited the UK with my 45 year old Son this year, US Citizen Son, also born in the same hospital that I was.

Old people are frightened to go out, the drunkenness is out of control, Cops are in their game rooms, not on the street at 2AM.
The poll of cops came up negative on all being issued guns, 80% would quit!

Solution for knife crime, instant cure. Any human, male or female, convicted of stabbing an other human, automatic "No Jail time" Public (Televised) 10 lashes of the Birch Rod on the back, that would leave the person scarred for life. Dr. monitors heart rate, danger to health at any time during sentence, postpone till healed, continue till all ten administered.

Barbaric you say? how barbaric is it to plunge a blade into some cowering victims body? Make crime the use of a knife, baseball bat, brick, not the possession of the item. Bye the way, just like in my adopted Country the US of A, the politicians have body guards don't you know.

Jails are full, that would free them up yes? Chemical marking of cartridges? an other great idea.

 

[lookn4varmints]

I'm just an ignorant person, in many respects, so I don't understand why the criminal is going to purchase this specially-tagged ammo which will be used to convict him.

Surely the proponents of this can see that it will instantly create a black market for "safe" ammunition?

How much ammo does the criminal use, anyway. I can easily see someone paying a black market price of $200/box (instead of $20) for tagless ammo.

The "safe" ammunition could be created by one of two ways that I can immediately think of, and I'm not a clever criminal -

1. Use old tagless components and assemble ammunition.
2. Use ammunition stolen from another registered owner.

So, I think maybe the effort should go toward something that would actually reduce crime, like stiff sentences without parole. Microstamping, nanotags, etc. is a solution looking for a problem.

You're right, dmazur. The criminals will concoct one thousand ideas to circumvent the criminologists one crime-fighting idea. They could, also, switch to shot-like projectiles, cast their own bullets, etc. The list goes on and on. As our prison systems prove, it's not too hard to make your own knife or zip gun either.

 

[lookn4varmints]

We visited England for a vacation a few years ago. The place is full of very nice people, beautiful scenery and the most screwed up attitude toward government I have ever seen. It was incomprehensible to me. I knew that we, as Americans will never be able to understand these people when I asked a cabbie about the big green locked plastic dumpsters on many of the street corners.

I was told that they were for the "amnesty". I asked what she meant. She explained that they were there so people could turn in their knives without fear of prosecution. I asked why anyone would do that. I was told that "they say we don't need them, so why would we want them anyway?" I asked who "they" was and...you guessed it, the answer was "the government". The BBC was full of the success of the knife amnesty the whole time we were there.

I tried to ask a few others what the difference was between the horrible, commando-esque knives they were showing on TV and the knives in their kitchens and they looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language.

What I learned was that this stuff makes sense to these people. They are proud of their conformity. They LIKE to help themselves be oppressed. They are wonderfully polite and kind sheep. I doubt I will return.

See, I think 33-308 hit it. This isn't about crime fighting. It's much more useful for nanny state control and keeping the populace dependent upon the government for EVERYTHING, including your personal security. It creates the false illusion the government is doing something to protect the people. 33-308's comments make me think of Stockholm Syndrome where the kidnap victim or captive begins to relate to, sympathize with, and then become LOYAL to their captor, thus becoming ever-increasingly dependent upon the captor's "goodwill." Very scary stuff.

 

[natjan]

So wait...

Handguns are illegal in the UK, but they figure that criminals who obtain them will just go down to the local gun shop and buy marked ammo?

You guys make me laugh No one can just walk into a "gun" shop & buy ammo ( there are no real gun shops anyway ) in the uk, you have to pre-order it ( handgun ammo ) then bring your licence to the shop, then inform the police how much you have bought, so i don't see how any coating will help, as it is obvious criminals don't follow this procedure.

 

[Pat-inCO]

I believe there is a quote from the movie "Forest Gump" that applies to all of the UK when it comes to guns.
"Stupid is as stupid does."

They were stupid enough to let their laws be passed, now they get to live with them.
But then again, I guess if you are a serf, being treated like a serf is not as painful.
Isn't that part of why the US got started?

 

[maestro pistolero]

I'm allergic to pollen.

 

[Cannonball888]

The UK is confused. Pollen is for pistils not pistols.

 

[cambeul41]

Uh, natjan, that was the point . . . or did you assume WE didn't get it?

 

[AndyC]

The UK is confused. Pollen is for pistils not pistols.

Argh - bad pun! Bad pun! (Wish I'd said it)