GA bill would require a thumbprint, ID, and set up a database for anyone who wants to recycle metal

Link

Senate Bill 321, sponsored by Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, would establish stiffer requirements for metal recyclers and sellers. The bill would prohibit cash payments for metal purchases and require metal recyclers to collect a digital image of the metal items, plus a thumbprint and copy of a valid identification card from the seller. Metal recyclers would also be required to collect a thumbprint and a copy of a valid identification card from regulated sellers. The bill also would create a statewide database on buyers and sellers.

Can anyone give me a good reason why the government needs a database for people who buy and sell metal other than control?

Copper thefts.
they already do this if you sell over x number of pounds. I'm already in that database.

Edit: the selling database, not the copper theft database

reply to post by FSBlueApocalypse


If you read the full article in the link you supplied it tells you its to stop metal theft. They are considering a similar system in the UK to stop the dirty thieving scum from stealing copper cabling, road signs, manhole covers etc..

Originally posted by FSBlueApocalypse
Can anyone give me a good reason why the government needs a database for people who buy and sell metal other than control?

Given the number of people who are stealing copper wiring from houses under construction, turning themselves into crispy critters by trying to loot hydro substations, are stealing bronze statues and plaques to saw up and melt down...yah...I can see it.

reply to post by FSBlueApocalypse


Control of the peeps would certainly be high on their agenda.

I guess deterring theft would be another.

Copper theft has been an issue here - merchants pay up to A$6000 per metric ton - houses under construction are a target for theft... they take the wiring, hotwater systems and plumbing. All high quality copper, then sell for cash - no paper trail.

Nope no matter what the article says I am willing to bet it's to collect taxes. Think about all the people that are making all kinds of unreported income by scrapping. Trust me they could care less if your house plumbing got stolen.

Why do gov always go down the path of finger prints and ID etc - really is a big brother state, getting stupid, like theres no other way round of tackling the problem. Maybe instead of getting everybody to have their finger prints, why dont they offer the trader some money if the metal looks dodgy. traders know that they are accepting stuff that isnt legal - when people go into the yards with sleepers from train tracks alarm bells should ring, but they dont - they just accept it because they want money too.

The best way to tackle this is giving the trader the option to tell the police and get his money back while giving the police a picture of the person who sold them it. you have to give name and address anyway, finger printing is just stupid

Originally posted by jaynkeel
Nope no matter what the article says I am willing to bet it's to collect taxes. Think about all the people that are making all kinds of unreported income by scrapping. Trust me they could care less if your house plumbing got stolen.

exactly, copper and bronze thieves are a very small minority, what with the economy i see a lot of middle class folks are searching for and selling scrap to make to make ends meet.

and the gov can't have that, can they now? they need everybody poor,needy and dependent.
it brings recruitment numbers up [and they're going to need lot's of human sacrifices soon].

and all ways of making a buck on the sly need to be eliminated.

Anybody that reads my posts and replies knows I help manage a farm supply store.

One of the biggest problems facing many of my customers is the theft of metals...scrap metals, chains, impliments, tractors, truckes, silos, bins, gates, fencing wiring, heating units, gas burners for tobbacco drying barns...and on it goers.

Many of the thefts are not detected for several days and by then, the metal has been sold at the scrap yard and literally destroyed and crushed into a big cube of mixed metals.

Most of my customers and victims of this sort of theft have farms, some have very large farms... so they may be doing one set of chores, finish those up and while getting ready to go to the next phase find that they are missing a bottom plow or a set of discs, or in some cases a particular tractor.

Most of my customers live in very rural settings and go out into the field for most if not all the day. The wife works usually in town and she is gone all day. they return home to find someone has stolen all the heating lines and fittings from under their house, or all of the lines and fitting connecting the barns are gone. One fellow's mother was in her house while the theives were under her house literally disconnecting the heating oil lines and hauling them out. She didn't discover it until she smelled the pungent scent of heating oil.

Several of my customers have had their john Deere and International tractors stolen and taken to the scrap yard...the workers their smelled a theif and promptly called the sheriff and they indeed were stolen. Another man had a rental house that was in between tenants... someone had gone in and literally pulled the wiring through the sheet rock walls all around the rooms. Sadly, many churches are also falling prey to theives... some stealing the entire heating set up, unit, ductwork, wiring and all.

Frankly, it may sound draconian to some, but it makes a lot of sense to do so...when a person works hard all their life only to have a piece of equipment stolen so a crack head can get a fix from a stolen piece of metal.

In the UK it has become a major problem, most notably stealing from the rail infrastructure, this is fine by me as a few of them have been electrocuted recently (poetic justice?), however it's the low life scum that steal war memorials and plaques that have been there for ages and also the low life scum scrap dealers that take these plaques, they know they are stolen so should not accept them, but hey ho everyone needs money right

reply to post by FSBlueApocalypse





there are hundreds of million$ in tax revenue lost every year to the aluminum can collectors
you know the ones that dive for cans, & ride a bike with a trash bag full of cans to the next recovery site or to cash the metal in at their local recycle center

~there might just be a few dozen 'wanted' outlaws out there, living in the underground, collecting cans or other metal from construction sites....

the data base needs to be increased, incrementally, so as to not spook the population;
that a noose is being tightened around their necks

so, yes its control, but we are told that discovering outlaws and getting everyone's "fair-share" of taxes is the motivation

besides, a lot of things are headed toward rationing, & recycleable metals might become a national 'strategic' material... that does not need to be mined or bought from China who hoards rare Earth minerals

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


After a flash flood damaged one of my homes in 2008.
People were all over the damaged homes taking away
any metal they found.It really made me angry because
someone took my grandkids' basketball court off my own
property.
The damaged homes were viewed by some as being abandoned
when they weren't.They just took what they wanted and sold it
for scrap.

They have a state law that you must have photo Id to sell enything except aluminum cans to a scrap yard. Usually the peple working there can tell if something's hot, ie someone selling new tungsten carbide drill bits, new car parts, sawzall cut catylitic converters, or memorial placks to mame a few.