Does the second ammendment protect the sale of ammunition

[FarCenter]

Centerfire pistol ammunition should be limited to the military, law enforcement officers and guard services with permits.

Centerfire rifle ammunition should be difficult to get and required to be stored under safe conditions. (IIRC, the Swiss received their ammunition for home storage in sealed tins, which had to be accounted for periodically.)

Only .22 short rimfire and birdshot should be fairly readily available.

[jody]

1. Apparently you don't know that most of what you call rifle ammunition is also used in handguns. nt

[FarCenter]

6. Number 5 up are centerfire rifle ammunition

Which of these are used in hanguns?




Below are centerfire handgun cartridges.



Some of these, such as the .44 magnum, are used in rifles, and others, such as the 9 mm are used in submachine guns. But I don't think that any of these should be available to civilians without a permit.

The .22 short rimfire is similar to the cartridge on the right, but it is about 2/3 the length.

[NickB79]

8. All of those are used in handguns

Hell, they make a revolver that fires fucking .45-70 Government rounds! That's the same round used to kill off buffalo on the Great Plains at 500 yards!

http://www.magnumresearch.com/Firearms/Magnum-Research-4570-Revolver-75-inch-Barrel.asp

In the world of guns, there's nothing too crazy for someone to try to do.

[FarCenter]

13. These are really fairly rare

And chamber pressures and recoil are going to make any semi-automatic pistol quite large and heavy.

If it's a problem the law could be tightened to restrict centerfire rifle ammunition as well. Especially centerfire rifle ammunition less than .270 caliber.

[NickB79]

16. The law would have to be tightened

I can buy one of these at the local Fleet Farm Supply store down the road, as well as every dedicated gun shop I've been in in the past 5 years:

http://www.rockriverarms.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_id=231

And then there are these:

http://www.americanrifleman.org/GalleryItem.aspx?cid=22&gid=159&id=1399

[jody]

9. I don't know what the rounds are in the first picture. You can check out available pistol rounds at

the following link for the G2 Contender Pistols, http://www.tcarms.com/firearms/g2Contender.php

[FarCenter]

15. I wouldn't be too concerned about single shot, break action pistols as mass murder weapons.

From left to right: 1 .17 HM2, 2 .17 HMR, 3 .22LR, 4 .22 WMR, 5 .17/23 SMc, 6 5mm/35 SMc, 7 .22 Hornet, 8 .223 Remington, 9 .223 WSSM, 10 .243 Winchester, 11 .243 Winchester Improved (Ackley), 12 .25-06 Remington, 13 .270 Winchester, 14 .308, 15 .30-06, 16 .45-70, 17 .50-90 Sharps

[jody]

18. You said "Centerfire pistol ammunition should be limited" and I pointed out most rifle calibers are

or could easily be used in a handgun. That would effectively ban those rounds of rifle ammunition.

[FarCenter]

22. I think that you could draw a distinction between the two by diameter, energy and momentum

Energy and momentum would tend to be associated with chamber pressures and recoil. High recoil hunting cartridges, such as .30-06 aren't very usable in pistols.

[Taverner]

2. IT's pretty easy to make your own rounds

I say force a yearly Psych Eval to own a gun

[DJ13]

3. Its pretty easy to make meth too

But its been shown that control of the components necessary to make it decreases the supply.

[Taverner]

4. Hmmm...interesting...keep going...

The shells can be reused, but perhaps the lead?

Although you can use any material for your bullet - it could be frozen meat (at least on CSI)

[FarCenter]

7. Handloaders have to have a source of gunpowder

While blackpowder is fairly easy to make, cooking up smokeless powder in your garage is more of a challenge.

You could probably buy shot shells and extract powder to reload handgun cartridges, but it might be somewhat challenging to get it to cycle reliably in an automatic.

Centerfire brass is only good for so many uses.

Centerfire primers are also another material to control.

[sarisataka]

12. The most difficult component is

the primer. Old fashioned black powder could be used in place of smokeless but the components of primers are much more volatile and difficult to make.

Unfortunately they are the smallest and would be the easiest to smuggle. OTH your average criminal would not likely go through the trouble to craft ammo.

[FarCenter]

17. Criminal will always buy guns from law enforcement and the military

There are lots of countries around the world the limit guns and ammuntion to police and army.

It never stops criminals from getting them.

[sarisataka]

23. Yes, the black market would be rife

And why smuggle components when assembled ammo would be as easy...

[onehandle]

5. The Second Amendment is a broken theory from another age.

The founders had no idea. It should be repealed. Period.

[bluemarkers]

10. muskets and homemade ammo

so I guess we could outlaw the sale of ammo, as lead balls were homemade

If we go back to original intent... but surely the founding fathers though there should be a bazooka in every closet?

[NickB79]

11. It would probably be ruled a "use tax" by the Supreme Court

And there is precedent against use taxes and constitutional rights: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_Star_Tribune_Company_v._Commissioner

Minneapolis Star Tribune Company v. Commissioner, 460 U.S. 575 (1983), was an opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States overturning a use tax on paper and ink in excess of $100,000 consumed in any calendar year.

On its face, this ruling finds that state tax systems cannot treat the press differently than any other business without significant and substantial justification. The state of Minnesota demonstrated no such justification to impose a special tax on a select few newspaper publishers. Therefore, this tax was in violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press.

[byeya]

14. Nuisance tax then maybe

[petronius]

19. Not USSC, but in Herrington v. United States (2010) the court said:

In neither Heller nor McDonald did the Supreme Court directly address restrictions on the possession of ammunition per se. ( The District's requirement that lawfully-maintained firearms be kept unloaded was not challenged in Heller.) Nonetheless, from the Court's reasoning, it logically follows that the right to keep and bear arms extends to the possession of handgun ammunition in the home; ?for if such possession could be banned (and not simply regulated), that would make it “impossible for citizens to use for the core lawful purpose of self-defense.”?By the same token, given the obvious connection between handgun ammunition and the right protected by the Second Amendment, we are hard-pressed to see how a flat ban on the possession of such ammunition in the home could survive heightened scrutiny of any kind. We therefore conclude that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to possess ammunition in the home that is coextensive with the right to possess a usable handgun there.?The government has not taken issue with that conclusion.

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/dc-court-of-appeals/1543809.html

So, it seems to me that any regulation or tax intended to limit the acquisition of ammunition would be just as Constitutional (or not) as if it applied to firearms themselves...

[FarCenter]

21. It wouldn't be a ban on possession. It would be a ban on manufacture and sale.

Furthermore, controlling ammunition would have some effect in not too many years as the existing stock is used up.

Controlling guns is pretty impractical given how many there are in private hands already.

[petronius]

24. Same reasoning though - Herrington implies that ammunition is protected to the same

degree that firearms themselves are. So if guns can't be banned, then neither can ammunition. To the extent that guns can be regulated, then so can ammunition.

More generally, I can't imagine that any court would go along with an 'end-around' attempt to eliminate or infringe on 2A or any other part of the BoR - whether through taxation, banning accessories like ammo, or other means...

[arely staircase]

20. all i have is birdshot and .22 long rifle

as well as a browning 9mm. all of these are in a safe with trigger locks. don't feel like i am doing anything that needs to be more regulatedor curtailed through a lack of ammunition.