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20 J. Legis. 19 (1994)
The Role of Ammunition in a Balanced Program of Gun Control: A Critique of Moynihan Bullet Bills

handle is hein.journals/jleg20 and id is 27 raw text is: THE ROLE OF AMMUNITION IN A BALANCED PROGRAM OF GUN CONTROL: A CRITIQUE OF THE MOYNIHAN BULLET BILLS Scott D. Dailard* I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND Guns don't kill people-bullets do.1 This tired old line plucked from the repertoire of comedian, Pat Paulsen, has been reborn as the guiding principle of an innovative gun control strategy proposed by New York's senior senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan.2 A series of bills introduced by Moynihan to the 103d Congress propose to stall America's urban arms race and reduce levels of violent crime by regulating the manufacture and sale of certain classes of handgun ammunition. Moynihan's proposed legislation emerges as an unexpected stepchild of sixty-five years of federal gun control legislation. Since the birth of national firearms policy in 1934, Congress has neither adopted nor proposed any primary gun control strategy based on the regulation of ammunition. Instead, the great American gun control debate has always hinged on the dual axes of the bad gun and the bad user. From one end of the political spectrum, the gun control lobby decries the proliferation of fire- arms in society and calls for legislation banning private ownership of an expanding list of weapons. From the opposite extreme, a powerful gun lobby steadfastly resists any proposal to restrict the availability of guns, while pinning the blame for gun-related violence on a justice system too soft on the criminal misuse of firearms. The middle ground is occupied by a largely ineffectual federal legislation of compromise featuring mild ownership restrictions,3 milder dealer licensing require- ments, and a selective weapons ban proscribing a few handgun imports and some obscure if extravagantly dangerous gangland weapons that are no more a part of the contemporary crime scene than Scarface Al Capone.4 * Scott Dailard is a lawyer and a journalist living in the San Francisco Bay area. Dailard is a graduate of the Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley and Harvard College. He is currently serving as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Samuel Conti in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (San Francisco). 1. Christopher Simser, Biting the Bullet, NAT'L REv., March 13, 1987, at 30 (quoting comedian Pat Paulsen). 2. If we are serious about reducing crime - if we are concerned about children killing children - ammunition to these guns ought be banned. After all, guns don't kill people; bullets do. 137 CONG. REc. S10,070 (daily ed. July 16, 1991) (statement of Sen. Moynihan). 3. Gun Control Act of 1968, § 902, 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)-(h) (1988). 4. The National Firearms Act of 1934 banned the civilian ownership of machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, silencers and other relatively rare firearms that had acquired repu- tations as gangster weapons in the years preceding its passage. National Firearms Act of 1934, ch. 757, 48 Stat. 1236 (1934) (as amended in scattered sections of 26 U.S.C.). Restric- tions on importation of certain foreign handguns, military surplus and other firearms

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