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OK, get your CSI geek on for a minute. Imagine you are a law enforcement person arriving at a crime scene. There has been a shooting. There is no gun at the scene, just the shell casings from the bullets.
Imagine how cool it would be if the shell casing could be etched with a code as it is fired from the gun so that the code would identify which gun the bullet was fired from. It would make it possible to check the code on the casing against a database of guns and match it up with the registered gun owner .
Sound kinda science fiction-ish? Like something Ian Fleming’s Q would dream up? Actually, it’s real technology that exists today call “micro-stamping”.
From Wikipedia:
it involves the use of laser technology to engrave a microscopic marking onto the tip of the firing pin and onto the breech face of a firearm. When the firearm is fired, these etchings are transferred to the primer by the firing pin and to the cartridge case by the breech face, using the pressure created when a round is fired. After the spent cartridges are ejected, these microscopic markings are imprinted on the cartridges, which can then be recovered by police and examined by forensic ballistics experts to obtain information to be used to trace the firearm through its life to the perpetrator of the crime.
New York State is in the process of passing historic legislation requiring that guns registered in NY have this micro-stamping feature. It has already been passed by the state assembly and has passed out committee in the state senate and is due for a full senate vote within days. Republican minority leader Dean Skelos has released his caucus to vote their conscience on this, so I’m optimistic about it passing.
It’s such a no-brainer; who could possibly be opposed to such a simple and effective law enforcement tool save for the most paranoid black-helicopters-off-the-grid-libertarian-conspiracy-theorists?
According to New Yorkers Against Gun Violence,
This crime fighting piece of legislation is supported by 83 police departments and law enforcement organizations throughout New York and by 100 mayors from across the state.
California has already passed such a law. Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, Wisconsin, and Illinois are all working on passing similar laws. This is such a common sense piece of legislation without any obvious down side that you have to wonder why it’s being approached at state-level and not a piece of federal legislation. In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. Xavier Becerra tried to promote the submission of micro-stamping legislation; according CBS, Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Steny Hoyer were not up for it.
This isn’t some big sweeping 2,000 page overhaul which seems to be in vogue these days; it’s a simple discreet change that can make life safer and fairer, yielding fewer misidentified suspects. It ought to be a national standard.
37 Comments
How is that persistent? In the face of a file or emery paper, removable. Even if etched in case hardened steel.
The honest and the stupid criminals will not file their guns. The smarter criminals?
I agree will maybe help da stupid but the smart ..never.. but what do you and how do you fund registering all those “Grand Fathered” guns?? Daunting!! Who pays for that??
The smarter criminals don’t use guns.
The main problem is the tens of millions of firearms already owned.
They aren’t going to be retrofitted.
A secondary issue is criminals that pick up their brass (or use revolvers, so no brass is ejected).
Lovely post ma’am, we move beyond the rifling of the shells and barrels to match up evidence forensic wise!
But.
Every gun owner in the nation, every NRA phreak, every redneck, every manufacturer who would be held liable for making the gun as evidence pours in as to how it was abused . . . and on and on and on.
They would, and others I can’t think of off the top of my head, they would oppose this.
Actually the presence of a cartridge isn’t necessarily indicative of the weapon used.
EG – someone is shot with a 9mm bullet. It isn’t too difficult to imagine dropping brass from a gun fired at a range in an effort to frame another gun owner. Commit the crime with a gun with a brass catcher, drop fraudulent brass.
Really simple..
Heh. No kidding.
How does this work with reloads?
When you reload a cartridge, you insert a new primer ( a rimfire cartridge can’t be reloaded), so the firing pin can imprint the code on the primer face again. A reload could have multiple imprints on the brass, but if the round has been fired, one should always match the imprint on the primer.
If there’s no primer still in the casing, there won’t be so many imprints on the brass that they can’t track them all down. A casing is only good for so many reloads.
Reloads would presumably have multiple marks from the receiver’s microstamp. The firing pin stamp would be unique, as primers don’t get reused.
The tooling for the gun manufacturer isn’t likely to add much cost to a firearm. And it could be useful for forensics in some number of cases.
Not necessarily, the bullet’s ballistics would not match the “wrong” gun. It would be a diversion for the police, but ultimately would not lead to the incorrect suspect.
Oh for cryin out loud, when ya dig the bullet out of the body and match it ballistic wise with a gun?
Please. That’s the old school.
I don’t really get what the new school tech is gonna be.
But MY point was . . . . who’s gonna resist the legislation of this technology.
I hope you GOT that, that that was MY point, in responding to Mz. Kouril.
*sigh*
Won’t be a hell of a lot of use with all of the weapons that don’t automatically eject shell casings.
there’s always gonna be crooks who try to outsmart law enforcement and technology. this will make it harder for them to do so. iirc, most shootings are heat of the moment and not a planned out deal.
It’s obvious that this technology can be circumvented pretty easily. So it isn’t a panacea, but that wasn’t claimed.
I agree it’s a good idea for new weapons.
this sounds like a GREAT idea to people who really don’t know much about criminals, guns, crime …
how many nanoseconds will it take to come up with a grey market for firing pins? what about the TENS OF MILLIONS of guns out there now?
you can’t regulate BP or Exxon or AHIP or Pharma or Halliburton or the thieving fucking banks, or that bastard lieberscum or blanche or conrad or … clinton selling us out …BUT … this is going to work?
what a great idea for running chardonnay fund raisers in the nice hoods with fellow vapor sniffers.
rmm.
This sounds great to fight crime, but can also be used against the people should they ever get the balls to revolt.
There is also talk of making amunition useless two years after purchase so the people can’t stock pile it to use against the Government.
We are seeing the eventual killing of our right to bare arms by limiting arms usefulness.
Remember that the Constitution gives the Government the right to put down revolution by the people by any means, and limiting the posibility of revolting by guns and amunition control is a subtle way of doing it.
I shot a bullet into the air.
They tracked me down and stripped me bare.
They said I was a terrorist and a threat
Then locked me up forever I bet.
I bang my cup upon the bars
They hit me in the head and I see stars
I yell and screem it’s not fair
All because I shot a bullet into the air.
Paranoia strikes deep/
Into your heart it will creep/
It starts when you’re always afraid/….
Get the fuck over it. You have much more reason to fear the jackasses filling your head with paranoid fantasies…
At first, I was ready to post something along the lines of:
“I’m a gun owner, and I think this is a good idea. If you have nothing to hide, what’s it matter?”
But then I got one troubling thought.
What happens if this became the standard and then people started shooting people with other owners’ firearms. If they are stamped and registered, the cops would be very quick to say “Well, sir, the casing that was found matches your gun thanks to the microstamp on the shell.”
…And the now defendant’s argument is going to be “But but but I didn’t shoot my gun at that person!”
I foresee a big, messy potential problem with that…
Besides, as has been pointed out, what does this do for millions of other guns that aren’t going to be retrofitted? And for that matter, what does it do for a single one of the unregistered and unlicensed firearms that your typical thug or gangbanger is going to carry anyway?
I am all for gun-control measures that make a lot of sense, but frankly, I’m not sure that this would do anything other than make some of the stridently anti-gun people feel better and the super whackjob pro gun tin-foil hatters feel even more threatened.
Bad idea I think.
“As part of Bilderberg’s agenda to “Europeanize” America and turn it into a socialist welfare state wherein its citizens are completely dependent on the government, the elite are celebrating President Obama’s support for a UN small arms treaty, which many fear could be used to impinge on the right to keep and bear arms.”
Its all in the bag, the group of 30, tri-lateral commission, Time magazine, etc,etc, cerberus owns the firearm industry in the US and it seems to me they are putting McVeigh chips in the guns, or at least a couple of passive RF ID tags, like they put into books for sale to prevent theft. Where did I put that tinfoil, I gotta make a new hat.
Sounds like a great idea, but one that is easy for someone with basic skills to defeat.
As a mater of trivia, when laser printers came along, the Secret Service required that every print job contain an embedded code that identifies the printer that printed the document or picture. The reason was that a laser printer set to print at maximum quality made an amazing copy of the $100 bill. Try it sometime. Hey, if banks can print money, why can’t we? Just don’t get caught.
NM
Titanium dioxide.
Arghh, I’m not opposed or supportive… and I’m certainly not impressed with the “technology”
This case marking system is a toothless panacea.
Anyone who wants to defeat this system can easily do so with a file or die grinder,,, either before or after (or both) firing the weapon.
So will police ammo carry the “DNA?” Most cops are shot by other cops – hmmm. Most citizens shot by cops are shot by cops. Can’t imagine the police unions would be happy about this sort of thing.
One thing it’s sure to do is raise the black market value of pre-stamp guns a whole bunch.
Leave our guns alone.
“someone is shot with a 9mm bullet. It isn’t too difficult to imagine dropping brass from a gun fired at a range in an effort to frame another gun owner. Commit the crime with a gun with a brass catcher, drop fraudulent brass.”
That’s also true of current ballistics matching. What micro stamping does, is allow a data base to be compiled before the gun leaves the manufacturer.
As for brass from a range, you are supposed to collect up your brass and take it with you.
No it won’t, but why let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It’s a simple, relatively low cost thing to do, which makes law enforcement easier and fairer.
It’s an improvement, not a panacea
Using someone else’s gun to shoot your victim, currently results in the ballisitics match coming back to that gun.
What micro stamping does, is make it easier to track down the gun. All of the false brass and and other person’s gun arguments are also true with current ballisitics.
And the false brass argument has another problem, the balisitics on the brass won’t match the slug in the vicitm
You are probably right about that, sadly.
More than anything else this would promote the ownership and use of revolvers for the crime oriented professionals. Might slow the sales of semi-automatics and that’s probably it’s biggest impact (no pun intended). Call it the anti-Glock – pro-Dirty Harry legislation. Revolvers are probably a tad more accurate in any event.
This might help track down gang bangers and crimes of passion but won’t make much difference to the very very small population of hitters the TV shows us every night.
hopefully it will benefit smith and wesson in springfield ma., IF all the new revolvers are going to be made in the usa.
while a 6 shooter doesn’t have the current cachet of a 9 or a 40 or .45, .357 and .44 mag do a REAL good job.
rmm.
Yeah I forgot all about Smith and Wesson. Big bore will much more popular I suspect.
I predict a resurgence of Colt Python sales as well as a boost in Remington handgun sales. Good economic news for Connecticut and New York
This technology is common sense and law enforcement is asking for it. Microstamping is not a panacea, it is simply another tool to help law enforcement solve gun crimes faster and help criminals off the street before the strike again. The technology will only be required on new semi-automatic handguns manufactured after January 1, 2012. While it will not be on every gun right away, why should we continue to make it easy for criminals to get away with crimes? In regards to defeating the technology, that is why the microstamping is required on 2 locations, the firing pin and the breech face. If you are able to file down the firing pin (and have the gun still operate properly, which is unlikely) it will still microstamp the shell casing from the breech face. Plus the legislation clearly states that this can’t cost anymore than $12 per gun. If you truly read the legislation and understand the technology, there is no reason to oppose microstamping.