June 29, 2005

"...It's not that easy bein' green:

    Having to spend each day the color of the leaves

    When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow or gold-

     or something much more colorful like that.

 

    It's not easy bein' green.

    It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things.

    And people tend to pass you over 'cause you're not standing

     out like flashy sparkles in the water- or stars in the sky.

 

    But green's the color of Spring

    And green can be cool and friendly-like.

    And green can be big like an ocean, or important like

      a mountain, or tall like a tree.

 

     When green is all there is to be

     It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why?

     Wonder, I am green and it'll do fine, it's beautiful!

     And I think it's what I want to be..."

 

                    -Lyrics of the song "It's Not Easy Bein' Green",

                     by Joe Rapposo and sung by the character of

                     Kermit the Frog on the PBS show

                     "Sesame Street".

 

 

To All,

      It is no wonder why the California State Legislature is coming in 13 points lower in job approval rating among registered voters than Governor Schwarzenegger (Field Poll, June of 2005), after one gets to see them "in action" of late:

 

It's Not Easy Being Green:

     The debate over the recently amended SB 357, which would require serialization of ammunition sold in California after January of 2009, began anew in the California Assembly's Public Safety Committee today.

 

      But no minor tweaking of the bill, including extending various requirements of the bill out to as far as 2016 and allowing visitors to California to import up to 50 rounds of non-serialized ammunition into the state for "self-defense" purposes during temporary visits, will fix this sow's ear of Legislative work product.

 

     That is because that collection of Canutes in charge of the State Capitol cannot over-turn physics by fiat, especially without tripping over their own partisan policies.

 

     More specifically, the policy victim du jour has to do with "green" or "non-toxic" ammunition. Commonly called "frangible ammunition" by shooting cognoscenti, this type of ammunition has been developed as a potential answer to environmental concerns at shooting ranges private and public. Most of the types of green ammunition put out by the various manufacturers involves powdered metal techniques incorporating copper with polymer binders as a replacement for the lead used in traditional ammunition.

 

     Additional uses for green ammunition include Close Quarters Battle (CQB) training in gallery houses as well as specialty law enforcement applications where over-penetration represents an inordinate hazard to bystanders or adjacent equipment and facilities (Nuclear vessels, petrochemical refineries, industrial gas and liquid containers, etc.). Green (frangible) ammunition breaks apart upon impact of hard surfaces, thus posing a lesser risk to the above-noted industrial equipment.

 

     It is this intrinsic characteristic of green ammunition that puts it afoul of SB 357. Specifically, Section 12314 (d) (5) requires that the serialization method to be eventually prescribed by the Department of Justice to be one of a manner "...that is maintained subsequent to the discharge of the ammunition and subsequent to the impact of the bullet...". But since green/frangible ammunition itself powders upon impact, the projectile itself would fail a key premise of the whole concept of ammunition serialization. Police would be unable to recover such a projectile so as to begin a trace with.

 

     As such, SB 357 contains a fatal flaw that would effectively ban ammunition critically important to the military, law enforcement, and the manufacturers that have spent considerable research funds attempting to mollify the environmentalist movement.

 

    Previous examples of "seat-of-the-pants" lawmaking which conflicts with the goals of environmental theology includes the MTBE/ethanol/clean fuels debacle, certain command economy characteristics built into electricity deregulation, and the current flap over wind-driven electrical generation and it's impact on certain endangered bird species. In these cases, the leadership in the Legislature has been caught in the circular crossfire of key Democrat interest groups competing to implement mutually exclusive agendas.

 

     It will be interesting to see how the Assembly deals with this latest self-inflicted wound to the political foot. Police departments usually consume "mass quantities" of ammunition for training and deployment purposes, and had been keen upon doing away with the threatened liabilities involving traditional ammunition. And law enforcement has been waiting for SB 357 to be "fixed" regarding those aspects perceived to be "separate" from the general shooting public. But if this is the kind of "fixing" that State Senators Dunn and Perata had in mind, then the low regard that they hold law enforcement and the general shooting public has been made very clear. The only way that this can be rectified is for SB 357 to be defeated in the Assembly. Stay tuned.

 

Story references at:

Respectfully,