California attempts to revive a bill that ‘microstamps’ handguns

The new bill would expand the law to include weapons used by police officers, which gun control advocates believe may prompt gun manufacturers to improve technology so they can sell the weapons to members of law enforcement.

Gun control advocates are making a new attempt to force the gun industry to comply with California’s unique law requiring individual identifiers on all bullet casings, a mandate that has been toothless since it was approved in 2007. The law requires gun manufacturers to adopt microstamping technology on new types of handguns introduced in California, the most populous state in the United States. The intent was to imprint a unique set of microscopic characters on all cartridge casings when weapons are fired, linking bullet casings to the guns that discharged them.