Because it wouldn't work. You're purposefully trying to work around the intent of things. Judges tend to take ill view of cute things like that.
Besides, ok you ban the sale of ammunition. Now are you going to ban reloaders and selling of ammunition components too? How far are you willing to go down that rabbit hole? Noting that it isn't that hard to make ammunition are you going to ban the knowledge of that as well? It would be pretty easy for a lawyer to point out the whole idea is an end run around the spirit of owning armaments. For that reason alone its not any better of an idea than trying to ban guns outright.
I thought a lot of laws were cute intents to work around the constitution.
Any such law would work its way up the legal chain until it got to the supreme court (assuming they chose to take it up the case). As the federal law on armor piercing bullets shows [1] there does not seem to be anything stopping congress passing a law regulating or banning ammunition. Instead of just limiting the ban to armour piercing it could be extended to a ban on ammunition that can pierce the skin.
If you are able to ban ammunition you could certainly ban the sale of the components to make ammunition. Sure there might be some individuals that choose to break these laws, but it would be pretty effective.
Ultimately the choice to do something like this would be politically, not constitutionally constrained. If you oppose the widespread availability of guns [2] why not try to think around the problem rather than bashing your head against the constitutional rock?
> I thought a lot of laws were cute intents to work around the constitution.
And this is why judges exist: to go "hey, that law is trying to work around the Constitution and therefore is unconstitutional." And I say this as someone very much in favor of gun control. But it must be approached legally, not with the mindset that the law is some kind of computer program executed by idiot minds.
The bans of armor piercing bullets have their own reasoning behind them. Banning all bullets would ensure any arguments presented would amount to banning of armaments.
It would be akin to banning cars by banning the sale of wheels. You will be hard pressed to say your intent is to stop people getting run over by stopping wheels from running people over. It is patently obvious your goal is to stop cars from being used. Even if you ban wheels with spikes on them that obviously only ever get used to destroy other cars, that doesn't mean that it is ok to ban all wheels using the same logic.
You'll probably want to ask a lawyer the legal situations behind your proposal. They'll be better able to elaborate. But in talking to some lawyer friends in the past, they note judges are really good at sniffing out attempts to work around the spirit or intent of a law.
I think you might have missed the point of my question. I am not suggesting banning ammunition, but asking why legislating their killing power be restricted as an approach to gun-control has not been tried. It appears that it is constitutional to limit the killing power of ammunition (i.e the armor piercing bullets) - what interests me is how far this approach can be taken and still be constitutional.
I will say once again I am not personally in favor of gun control, just asking why the anti-gun lobby is not trying to go after the weak point in the regulation of guns (the ammunition) rather than the strong (the second amendment).
Besides, ok you ban the sale of ammunition. Now are you going to ban reloaders and selling of ammunition components too? How far are you willing to go down that rabbit hole? Noting that it isn't that hard to make ammunition are you going to ban the knowledge of that as well? It would be pretty easy for a lawyer to point out the whole idea is an end run around the spirit of owning armaments. For that reason alone its not any better of an idea than trying to ban guns outright.