Ballistic Fingerprinting poll

[waktasz]

1817 - 55 for the good guys

 

[Outbacker]

Voted. Looks like the NOs have it!

 

[MDHunter]

It's Not ONLY About ballistic Fingerprints

La Escopeta,

One of the big problems with legislation like this is that it facilitates restrictions that go against the Second Amendment, and make it easier for later administrations to track and collect guns that HAD BEEN legal (see Germany before Hitler came into power, or the current mods to the NY state AWB that are being proposed to RECALL weapons that had previously been considered legal).

You mention that if "even 10 more criminals are caught each year", it's worth it in your opinion. My question is this: is catching 10 more criminals each year, worth the increases in violent crime that accompany gun control? Is it worth the genocide that a society potentially subjects itself to, when its citizen are unarmed?

You wanted facts, chew on these for a while:

- From 1901-2000, approximately 169,000,000 (yes, that's MILLION) people were slaugthered by their own governments (see Uganda, Rwanda, Germany, Kurdistan, etc); this is more than FOUR TIMES the combined total casualties of ALL the wars fought during that period. The one thing all of these countries had in common? Their citizens were banned from owning firearms;

- Both Australia and the United Kingdom have enacted strict gun control measures in the past decade, and both countries have seen a significant rise in violent crime rates versus the rates just before the legislation was passed;

- New York, Detroit, Chicago, and Wasahington DC have approximately 6 percent of the nation's population, and approximately 22 percent of the vilent crime. What do these cities have in common? All have enacted handgun or firearm bans;

- States that allow citizens to carry concealed weapons appear to notice drops in their rates of violent crime, compared to those states which have not enacted CCW legislation.

If you need more facts than that, notice that New York has spent about $14 MILLION on THEIR ballistic fingerprinting system, and have not seen any type of benefit. Do we want to up the ante in Maryland, and kick another $10 Mill down the drain?? Will we then say "Gosh guys, you were right....I guess this legislation really DOESN'T work??"

If that's not enough facts to suit your appetite, just search on Google for the latest National Academy of Science report on the effectiveness of gun control laws, or for other of the many sources of data on this topic.

Michael

 

[halvey]

The "right" answer is "NO" for the people in Rio Linda.

 

[Bear Gulch]

Yet anothe rbloated government program to treat all gun owners like criminals.

 

[nico]

The "right" answer is "NO" for the people in Rio Linda.

can someone explain what that means? I've heard Limbaugh say things like that, and I assume it's meant as a dig toward the intelligence of people in Rio Linda, but I wanna make sure before I act like I get it.

 

[GigaBuist]

LaEscopeta,

Human fingerprints are reasonably unique and don't change much over time.

Shell casings and bullets coming out of a weapon change all the time. Grab a box of Winchester White Box sometime and compare all 100 rounds. Even in factory ammo the pressures between rounds in the same lot is enough to change the impression marks.

You think the marks on a 115 grain Winchester White box brass cased FMJ round are going to look the same as 147 grain +P nickle plated Speer Gold Dot JHP round? How about a steel cased Wolf round?

Not going to happen.

If you want to dig into it further, please read this first: http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2005/01/why-ballistic-fingerprinting-doesnt.html

 

[Harry Tuttle]

 

[Leatherneck]

LaEscopeta's flawed logic

Let's say I go knock off my mortal enemy in maryland with my trusty .45 auto 1911. I come home and proceed to replace the barrel with a spare I've had for a while and dump the old barrel into Big Muddy. The coppers find my ejected casings and say "AHA! These shells were fired by 1911 serial no. 123ABC, purchased by Leatherneck from the Upper marlboro Gun and ***** store in 1992. Where does that dude live now?"

And they come, and I surrender said 1911, they test it and---Lo and Behold, neither the rifling scratches nor the cartridge marks match, although they do note similarities in firing pin impression and extractor marks. Those, alone, are not enough to convince the DA to prosecute, so Ole Leatherneck is off the hook for the dirty deed.

Capische?

 

[Harry Tuttle]

or if ole leatherneck had utilized butches bore paste,
or firelapping compound
or over cleaned the chamber with a steel brush
or shot steel casings
or shot a different brand of brass cased ammo, then the manufacturer provided test round,
or had traded various action parts out with a buddy
or had dropped a handfull of brass from the gunrange at the crime scene.

human fingerprints grow back

metal parts wearout

 

[Lil38]

Still a strong lead

2676 no - 100 yes - that's 96%

 

["yote"]

Nothing that a little lapping compound wont fix! Hell, if a person uses JB Bore
Cleaner a few times a year, that person is changing his rifling signature a few
times a year.

 

[LaEscopeta]

Maybe a pause to review would be worthwhile.

The technique of matching spent casings with the gun that fired them was develop by the FBI crime lab in the 60s, and has been used successfully in countless criminal investigations over the decades, all over the country. The technique has limitations (as noted by many in the thread) and it can not be used in all cases, but until the new idea of collecting a spent casing from every new handgun sold came up, I don’t think anyone claimed it was always impossible to match casings with guns.

Ash, Harry Tuttle, Yote, et al: You guys certainly know a lot of ways to alter a gun after using it in a crime. Do you do it for a living? Luckily, not all real criminals know enough to do it, just like not all criminals know enough not to leave fingerprints. Hundreds are caught each year because of fingerprints, and a much lesser number (dozens?) are caught at least in part because of a casing match.

Leatherneck: Sounds like you have a good plan. If you can keep your nerve and your mouth shut you have a good chance of getting away with murder (theoretically speaking of course.) But a lot of people who think they can commit the perfect murder are not as smart, forwardly thinking or as mentally tough as you. Often all the police need is a clue from the crime scene, like a casing, to lead them to a suspect, and this allows them to gather additional evidence needed for a conviction. You might be surprised how many suspects trip up or break down while being interviewed.

nico:

…the software involved in the database is ineffective…

Now this is a problem. Maybe it is like that video face recognition software rip-off?

On the other hand, the fingerprint matching software currently used also does not provide conclusive results, but rather a list of potential candidates are presented that must be manually reviewed. And for over 70 years fingerprints were matched without any computer help. It took months, but the number of convictions achieved was well worth the time and expense.

Again, I respect everyone’s right to their opinion.

 

[Harry Tuttle]

Matching a casing or a bullet, to a gun discovered in a search is a completely different scenario,
then matching a spent casing found a scene to a database of a virgin casings aquired from the manufacturers.

In the first case you are saying does this item match this item

In the second case you are asking does this item match any of these 1 million items.

As CNC manufacturing technology advances, the unique differences between mass produced goods becomes rather slim.

The IBIS system is having difficulties matching fired casings to scans known to be in the sytem.

How Reliable is Ballistic Fingerprinting?
by Steven Milloy

The sniper spree in the Washington, D.C., area has spawned calls for "ballistic fingerprinting" of firearms.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., announced he would introduce legislation for a national program. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence told The Washington Post that ballistic fingerprinting would have "solved this crime after the first shooting."

But an October 2001 report by California state ballistics experts?-- hushed up by the California attorney general's office?-- concludes that ballistic fingerprinting isn't feasible right now.

Ballistic fingerprinting involves sending a fired bullet and empty cartridge casing from a gun to a government agency before that gun can be sold. The idea is to match?-- preferably by automated computer analysis?-- pre-sale ballistics data with crime scene data.

Maryland and New York already require ballistic fingerprinting. So far it hasn't helped convict a single criminal in Maryland despite "fingerprinting" 17,000 guns sold since January 2000. New York hasn't had success either.

And there isn't likely to be success any time soon, according to the study.

The report included the test firing of more than 2,000 rounds from 790 pistols.

When cartridges from the same manufacturer were test-fired and compared, computer matching failed 38 percent of the time. With cartridges from different manufacturers, computer matching failed 62 percent of the time.

"Automated computer matching systems do not provide conclusive results" requiring that "potential candidates be manually reviewed," said the experts.

But the experts estimated a California database would grow by about 108,000 entries every year?for pistols alone. "This study indicates that this number of candidate cases will be so large as to be impractical and will likely create logistic complications so great that they cannot be effectively addressed," they said.

The test-firing results only scratch the surface of ballistic fingerprinting's problems.

The experts concluded it's unknown whether cartridges fired after typical firearm break-in and wear can at all be matched to the cartridge fired when the gun was new.

"Firearms that generate markings on cartridge casings can change with use and can also be readily altered by the users," said the experts. "They are not permanently defined like fingerprints or DNA."

A file may be used to make scratch marks in a barrel or a breech face, and various parts may be replaced to give a firearm a completely new ballistic identity. Bullets may be treated to alter the machining marks in a barrel.

Not all guns even generate markings on cartridge casings.

Further, "fired cartridge casings are much easier to correlate than fired bullets," noted the experts. Because bullets are severely damaged on impact, they can only be examined manually.

Moreover, Americans already own more than 200 million guns; those won't be included in any ballistics database.

Hiding behind the sniper shootings and calling for ballistic fingerprinting --?is the gun control lobby.

"The [sniper] shootings are a perfect example of how valuable complete ballistic fingerprinting would be," said a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

"Doesn't it make sense for us to give law enforcement the tools they need in order to solve such crimes?" asked Sarah Brady of the Brady Campaign.

Perhaps?-- if ballistic fingerprinting worked. What gun control advocates really want is the proven result of ballistic fingerprinting?-- reduced gun sales.

The Maryland law reduced 2001 handgun sales to their lowest level in 10 years. Handgun sales have continued to drop in 2002, according to the Maryland State Police.

Gun control advocates are fogging debate by claiming a July 2001 report from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms found computerized ballistic fingerprints currently available to federal law enforcement officials produced 8,800 ballistics matches with 17,600 crime scenes during 2000-2001.

But the ATF report only involved standard matching of crime scene evidence with post-crime ballistic testing. This is quite different from comparing crime scene with pre-sale ballistics.

Shockingly, the California experts were silenced by California's pro-gun control Attorney General Bill Lockyer. One panel member said he was gagged by the AG's office, not only about the study, but about the entire topic.

The AG's office acknowledged in an interview it favored a ballistics fingerprinting system and denigrated its study as "preliminary" pending a review by a lone European expert. No explanation was offered for not having FBI, ATF or other U.S. ballistic experts review the report.

The Bush administration has opposed ballistics fingerprinting on a national level, but this week committed to more study of the idea?-- the same sensible recommendation made by the California experts.

As it stands now, ballistic fingerprinting only promotes the agenda of gun control activists, not the agenda more in the public interest, that of?law enforcement.

Steven Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com , an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and the author of Junk Science Judo: Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute, 2001).

 

[Greg L]

Should the Maryland State Police continue the gun ballistics database?
Choice Votes Percentage of 3470 Votes
Yes 120 3%
No 3350 97%

(from a cut n' pasted new window )