Patriot me said:
How hard would it to be for the government to require a special suffix or prefix for these codes?
Exactly, its just a law away. All firearm RFID codes must have them, by order of Congress, enforced by the ATF, violation of which becomes a federal firearms felony.
Just as serial numbers were originally meant to help with inventory, for the benefit of the manufacturer and the consumer, and only later became a mandated tool of government.
bigfatdave said:
there's some idiot pushing microstamping, too
Yes and it was passed into law in California, with a little problem keeping it from being implemented yet, and some years into the future.
But it is the law.
bigfatdave said:
The difference between you and me is that I see that gadget and start thinking about where else I can put a few dozen of them.
Which under such law would be quite likely a criminal act. Yes you can commit tons of criminal acts in protest. Along with various forms of civil disobedience. You may however also find yourself a felon.
If the law states a certain prefix-suffix belongs to firearms there also won't be a bunch of companies illegally producing those RFID tags, and if someone is illegally interfering with federal and state criminal investigations (yes if it annoys them they will find some investigation it can be claimed to have hampered) they will go to the known manufacturers of them and look at their records.
Who is getting all these chips with firearm prefix-suffixes?
Now you could make your own, but that adds an additional step.
The EZ-pass and similar pay systems show it would be quite desirable to government to have such readers throughout society, in the overpasses of freeways, in the doorways of government buildings, in city owned structures like like posts etc along sidewalks or wherever else it is found convenient to build them into.
It would take less money than your typical city owned surveillance or red light camera system to install them in city owned stoplights or street lights around the city.
A lot coverage for minimal investment.
Combined with a law that all law abiding people had RFID, you could readily track legally owned firearms as they moved about in society.
Sure criminals would defeat the system, just as they do today, and just as they defeat serial numbers and other things. That has nothing to do with government controlling the law abiding citizen that will not be illegally breaking their chips, removing them, and otherwise violating federal or state law.
Technology gets better and improves as time goes on, and there is already higher end RFID chips. When the product they will be in costs hundreds of dollars they can afford to use or legally require ones that cost cents or even a whole dollar more than the ones used to track $10 shirts in a store.
There is also already readers, including those used maliciously that read from much further than the standard distance.
Standard distances will also improve as technology progresses.
These are very much a potential threat. Just because the threat has not materialized yet does not mean you should not be vigilant to keep it from coming to pass.
Don't let them become standard like serial numbers, don't let government see them as standard and then pass a law requiring them as they did with serial numbers.
You control your future. Sticking your head in the sand and saying it won't ever happen and is just a conspiracy theory won't stop it. Only you will.
