California Microstamping?

California Madness

Mulliga of Shangrila Towers fame gives us a heads up about a microstamping bill that passed the California Senate.

What is "microstamping"? It is where tiny serial numbers are stamped on a cartridge case every time the gun is fired. The idea is to make it easier to track guns used in crimes, since the brass ejected from the criminal's guns will also have identifying marks that will lead to the perp.
The problem is that the vast majority of people who commit violent crime have already been convicted multiple times for other felonies, which means that it is already against the law for them to even possess a firearm, let alone buy one. They have to obtain their guns illegally, usually through theft. Any microstamped brass littering a crime scene won't lead to the criminal because there won't be any record of him purchasing the gun.
The second problem is that any person who can change a flat tire has more than enough mechanical savvy to get a file and scrape away the little numbers that stamp the brass. I sincerely doubt many criminals would even bother since, like I said before, there is no record of purchase that would lead back to them anyway.
Microstamping is an idiotic idea that would do nothing to reduce crime or help the police catch criminals, and it would increase the cost of semi-automatic firearms. It is an obvious ploy by the anti-gun lobby to place yet another ridiculous restriction on firearm ownership that has no utility.