It is not surprising that gun control activists who harp endlessly about “common sense” gun restrictions and the need for ever more legislative reforms (here[1], here[2] and here[3], for example) aren’t particularly interested in whether the various bans and other restrictions actually qualify as “common sense” or effective, so long as the end result is fewer guns. A decade after the Heller case was decided, though, many of our nation’s courts exhibit much the same mindset.
In 2007, the California legislature approved a law, enacted as Cal. Penal Code § 31910 (b)(7)(A), on “unsafe handguns.” New models of semiautomatic handguns could not be sold unless the gun was equipped with “microstamping” technology that allowed the make, model, and serial number of the pistol to be imprinted in “two or more places” internally so that, theoretically, this information would imprinted on each cartridge case when the gun was fired. (The bill was amended to add the “two or more” requirement after it was pointed out that a single microstamp on the firing pin could be easily defeated by defacing or replacing the firing pin). Any semiautomatic handgun without this “dual placement microstamping” capability not already on the state roster of handguns was automatically an “unsafe handgun,” which exposed manufacturers, importers, and dealers to criminal prosecution and imprisonment.
The law became effective as soon as the California Department of Justice certified that the technology used to create the imprint was available. When this certification occurred in 2013, the State clarified that the certification confirmed only “the lack of any patent restrictions on the imprinting technology, not the availability of the technology itself.” In layman’s terms, the state was saying that nothing was stopping someone from developing the technology, so it was
