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What you are more likely to find is a +P to indicate that the bullets have an enhanced explosive charge, and a slogan claiming something along the lines of Maximum Stopping Power.

Because of the risk to life and limb, one has to show proof of age to purchase tobacco or alcohol. Yet an individual can have a bad morning; go to a hardware store, buy a box of bullets, and walk into an elementary school with an AR-15.

No questions asked, no proof of personal responsibility.

This invention had its birth after a local tragedy.

On July first, 2015 a young woman was strolling with her father along the San Francisco waterfront. She was struck in the neck, and collapsed dying, in her fathers’ arms by a bullet “accidentally” fired from a great distance.

This tragedy started locally and then because of issues of gun violence, illegal immigration, and sanctuary cities, became national news. At one of the news conferences, one of our civic leaders was asked what, if anything, could be done to combat the problem of irresponsible gun use. In an exasperated tone, the answer was, “I don’t know, if anyone has an idea, let me know.” At that moment, that tiny voice that lives inside each of us, the one we usually ignore, spoke up.

A single flash. One sentence. "If, during the manufacturing of a bullet, a character, or character string were applied by any permanent method on said bullet, an individual “fingerprint” that can be used to identify that individual bullet against all others has been created."

From that one sentence, the concept of a Ballistic Identification Number and its daughters. Ballistic Liability Insurance. A new forensic tool where investigators having recovered a bullet at a crime scene will know within minutes who purchased the box of bullets the recovered round came from. And, the potential to drastically reduce the huge public cost of gun violence was born.

The entire idea was so far out of the box, that the only way to put it back into the box for peer review was to write a series of eight short articles. The state of forensic ballistic identification is today, is the starting point.

Each article builds on the article before; what the Ballistic Identification Number, or as it is referred to throughout the articles, the BIN number, is; how the BIN number was derived; how the BIN number opens potential for the entirely new industry of Ballistic Liability Insurance, and how the integrated Ballistic Identification Number System will give law enforcement the biggest step forward in ballistic identification in one hundred eighty years; and how the integrated Ballistic Identification Number System will allow cities across the country to recover some of the massive public cost of gun violence.

There are several subjects not covered in the articles. Things like how the transition from no system to the BIN system will take place, transfer of bullets between private parties, and how to deal with ammunition manufacturers that that have difficulty making the necessary adjustments in manufacturing. It's not that these subjects are not important or have not been given deep and considered thought. These subjects are very important and discussion will be encouraged, but they are outside the description of the invention.

The Ballistic Identification Number System is an idea not a panacea.

Hopefully, as people talk about, and argue about the idea, someone will come up with a better one.

Plastic vegetable bags carry a written warning, “Keep away from children. This bag is not a toy. ​It can cause suffocation or death.”

Tobacco and alcohol products carry warnings of potential harm or death by properly using the ​product.

There is no warning on a box of bullets. 

For decades our national leaders, from all bands of the political spectrum, and the leaders of the National Rifle Association, have proclaimed; 1. guns don’t kill people and that, 2. there is a serious problem with irresponsible individuals having access to guns.

They are correct on both issues. Guns don’t kill people, bullets do. And yes, the lack of personal responsibility is a serious problem.

Part of the problem is; up until now, there hasn’t been a reliable method to assign responsibility for the safe storage and discharge of extraordinarily dangerous items, the individual bullets.

​A Giant Step Forward In Forensic Science

Prologue

I am neither for, or against guns. I served in the U.S. Army as a rifleman from 1965 to 1968. The weapon I carried was a tool of the trade. I am no longer in the Army and have not fired a weapon since, but I have no objections to owning or collecting guns.