Arizona Senate Holds Up Blockchain Gun Tracking Bill

Proposed legislation that would prevent the use of blockchains to track guns in Arizona has been temporarily blocked, public records show.

Early last month, House Bill 2216 was introduced with the aim of prohibiting any system that "uses a shared ledger, distributed ledger or blockchain technology or similar form of technology or electronic database" from being used to keep track of firearms. The bill was put forward by state representative Paul Boyer.

While the bill itself does not stipulate how a particular gun might be overseen remotely, the idea is that hardware sensors could be used to catalog whenever it is fired or loaded.

Despite a successful 34-25 vote in the Arizona House of Representatives in mid-February, the bill has hit a procedural roadblock that has effectively held it from further progress. On 8th March, according to public records, the Senate Government Committee opted to hold the bill, freezing the measure.

The bill's seeming failure comes on the heels of a successful vote in New Hampshire on a proposal to exempt bitcoin traders from money transmission regulations. The bill, introduced in late January, passed by a margin of 185-170, and now heads to the state senate for further consideration.

Combined, the updates show the diverse nature of the current US regulatory environment toward the emerging technology.

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Correction: This article has been amended to reflect that the bill was only temporarily held by the Senate Government Committee.