San Francisco bans Black Talon ammunition

[Fox1]

Apparently the lawmakers in San Francisco have taken it upon themselves to ban Black Talon ammunition that Winchester hasn't manufactured for the last 20 years.
At least it should be fairly easy to enforce.

This is one of the big things that bothers me. When lawmakers pass laws regarding things they have no understanding of. This ranks up there with the "one use" magazines comment coming from a Colorado lawmaker.

I have searched all the "regular" news organizations for this story for more solid confirmation but they are strangely silent on this story.

If anyone has further info on whether this is Interwebz chatter or an actual, real story, please update us here.

Here are two links on this:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3008721/posts

http://newyorkcityguns.com/2013/04/s...k+City+Guns%29

[Brian Pfleuger]

Well, here's a PDF of the actual ordinance:

[Fox1]

Thanks for that, Brian.

It's nice to verify that it's not an Internet rumor; sad that they even wasted the time to pass it.

Looks like it could be troublesome because of their loose definition of other ammunition that has "identical ballistic performance" to Black Talon ammunition.
Wonder if they mean internal, transition, external or terminal ballistic
performance?
They left themselves a lot of room for this law to be turned over.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Easy out, they use the word "identical".

I would wager that one box of BT ammo doesn't perform "identical" to another, say nothing of any other bullet/brand/load.

Therefore, nothing is banned except the exact BT brand.

[doofus47]

Feel safer now?

[Patriot86]

Its like when people talk about "Assault Ammunition" or "High Capacity Assault Clips". You see quickly in any kind of debate that most anti gunners wouldn't know an AR-15 from an AK-45 from an SKS from an M240. They simply know its a gun, it looks frightening lets ban it.

In this case it was its "cop killer ammo" so lets ban it.

[ATW525]

The "physical properties resulting in ballistics performance identical to" could be problematic. There doesn't appear to be any guidelines for how they intend to measure ballistic performance.

Edit: Bah... too slow... lol

[CowTowner]

Actually, Winchester/Olin still make "Black Talon". Only it comes branded as "Ranger" or by the bullet type/model "SXT".
The major differences are the brass case as opposed to the original nickle plated case and the copper jacked bullet has lost it's black coating.

OOPS! I didn't get the second page when I opened the PDF originally.

[Kochman]

This is a possession ban... meaning, if you held onto some you bought a while ago, it is now illegal to possess in SF.

[maestro pistolero]

Ex post facto?

[kilimanjaro]

No, it bans possession going forward, not retroactively.

Silly law, they must be concerned about the poor rapists and gangbangers, might get hurt.

[JimDandy]

No, the act of continued possession is the crime. Ex Post Facto would entail making the possession before the passage a crime. It COULD be a violation of the Takings Clause, but Spats, Zuki, Vanya or one of the other lawyers would have to weigh in on that one.

[jimbob86]

Its like when people talk about "Assault Ammunition" or "High Capacity Assault Clips". You see quickly in any kind of debate that most anti gunners wouldn't know an AR-15 from an AK-45 from an SKS from an M240. They simply know its a gun, it looks frightening lets ban it.

This is what happens when you let the ....ummm .... "expert" Legislators ....... legislate.

[JimDandy]

I'd be most worried about that similarity section being a reference to all hollow point ammunition. San Fran in particular isn't fond of it, and thinks it's extra-murderous or something.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by JimDandy

I'd be most worried about that similarity section being a reference to all hollow point ammunition.

I fully expect that they intended it to be exactly that, except that they were foolish enough to use the word "exactly".

There is no ammunition that performs "exactly" like BT does/did. So, the ban applies to nothing else.

If they knew what they were doing, they would have said "substantially similar" or "of similar design and function", or some such thing. "Exactly" is pretty... exact.

[JimDandy]

And a smart prosecutor can put up an expert witness to describe the point others have already made that one cartridge of Black Talon will behave different ballistically from another in the same firearm, and even more so from a second firearm.

Meaning Back Talon ballistic performance is not a specific number, but a range of performance, allowing other hollowpoints to fall in that acceptable range so as to be judged exactly?

[jrwhitt]

There are updates on Calguns relating to this. Specifically that SFPD know they have a problem enforcing it as there are no parameters as to how to test the performance

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by JimDandy

And a smart prosecutor can put up an expert witness to describe the point others have already made that one cartridge of Black Talon will behave different ballistically from another in the same firearm, and even more so from a second firearm.

Meaning Back Talon ballistic performance is not a specific number, but a range of performance, allowing other hollowpoints to fall in that acceptable range so as to be judged exactly?

I think you're going the wrong direction with that argument.

Random variability is the opposite of "exact".

Even identical twins don't look "exactly" alike.

If I put 200 sets of twins in a room and told you I'd pay you $1,000,000 to find two that were "exactly" alike, do you think I'd pay you based on "Well, no two are the same so they're all exactly alike in being different."?

[JimDandy]

I know it's the wrong way for us, I'm just pointing out that "exact" means what the prosecutor can convince the court it means. And even among rational people, we've already pointed out that the performance is different from round to round, box to box, and firearm to firearm, giving them a range of ballistic numbers to compare to.

[Brian Pfleuger]

They can try anything they want but they have to operate in a reasonable understanding of the common word usage. No way do you convince a court that "identical" (not "exactly", that was my bad I think) means "randomly and unpredictably different", which is the opposite of what identical actually means.

Their arguments have to have some basis in reality. If even the most basic words don't have an expected meaning, there really is no meaning to anything at all, ever.

[JimDandy]

Identical is even worse.

They can try anything they want but they have to operate in a reasonable understanding of the common word usage

Even identical twins don't look "exactly" alike.

A 500 year old painting, and a 5 year old forgery will appear identical, but have different microscopic and forensic testing results. This even further implies an allowance for variability.

[maestro pistolero]

And in related news, the City of San Francisco has enacted an ordinance finally ridding the streets of this nuisance:

[JimDandy]

Good riddance anyway. You can only ride the thing if you haven't ridden or been ridden by someone else. Not a fair trade.

[Brian Pfleuger]

You have an interesting spin on words, Jim, I'll give you that.

Misusing the words in ways that are not legally binding does not mean that the courts will not expect those words to have meaning.

Identical:
Function: Adjective
Similar in every detail; exactly alike: "girls in identical outfits".
exactly alike; incapable of being perceived as different; "rows of identical houses"; "cars identical except for their license plates"; "they wore indistinguishable hats" [syn: indistinguishable]
eing the exact same one; not any other:; "this is the identical room we stayed in before"; "the themes of his stories are one and the same"; "saw the selfsame quotation in two newspapers"; "on this very spot"; "the very thing he said yesterday"; "the very man I want to see" [syn: one and the same(p), selfsame(a), very(a)]

A forgery looks similar but it is not identical. If it were, it wouldn't be a forgery, since two different people can not do ANYTHING "identical". Even the same person can't be identical.

Similar is not identical.

The lack of being able to be "identical" doesn't somehow change the word to mean "anything sort of the same but not quite". It means there IS NO identical.

The word doesn't change to fit the circumstance. If the circumstance doesn't match the word, you use a different word.

No other ammunition is "identical" to BT. That doesn't make all ammunition fit the description of identical. It makes NO other ammunition fit.

[JimDandy]

Thank you

And I point out again, you mentioned

reasonable understanding of the common word usage.

and

Even identical twins don't look "exactly" alike.

Identical twins is a VERY common usage of the word. And you yourself point out that Identical Twins are not exactly alike.

I'm not trying to be difficult, or contrary. I just feel there's a lot more room there to cause people grief than you think. Especially with a San Francisco jury.