TexasCHLforum.com

For a while, this idiocy was actually in effect when I lived in Pasadena, California. A local ordinance was passed with great fanfare, requiring exactly that. Each and every time I bought ammunition, I had to fill out a form with my name, address, and driver's license number; plus the quantity, caliber, and lot number for each box of ammunition I bought. This went on for about 6 months or so, as I recall.

The only difference between the new proposal and what I experienced was that the Pasadena PD was tasked with collecting and maintaining the records from the gun dealers. The chief at that time, who was moderately pro RKBA, finally told the city that he wasn't going to do it anymore, and he stopped. He said they could either provide him with additional personnel above and beyond his already approved budget, plus additional storage space for all the records, or they could go shove it; because their silly rule would otherwise require taking officers off the street to administer it. The chief also pointed out that anybody could drive 5 more miles in any direction and buy ammunition from dealers located in cities that did not have this ordinance, so the effort was pointless anyway. He stopped collecting the records, and a week or two later, the city council quietly announced that they had "suspended" the effort (I always wondered where the fanfare went...), although I never did read where they had actually rescinded the ordinance. But from that day forward, ammunition "registration" was finished.

The critical difference here of course is that the SJMN editorial wants to burden the gun stores with maintaining those records... and of course they know that this would be an onerous burden, which is exactly what they are after anyway. For better or for worse, the state can force a merchant to maintain certain records - particularly for accounting purposes. I don't know what the constitutional support for that notion is, but I'm sure that it has stood the test at some point or other. Also, it can be reasonably argued that the maintenance of such accounting records is actually as much for the protection of the merchant as it is for the needs of the state, since those same records can be used for the merchant's defense as well as his prosecution.

I wonder if a challenge could be successfully mounted against such a law based on the state's failure to demonstrate how its enforcement is in the merchant's interest, since the sale of ammunition would remain legal despite the regulation. It also could be argued that, since ID can be faked, a merchant would have no way of knowing whether or not the ID presented by the customer was valid, and thus the merchant cannot be held liable for unknowingly selling ammunition to a person with a fake ID, or to a person who would be otherwise barred by this law from being able to purchase ammunition.