Ballistic Fingerprint Baloney - Your Thoughts

S

sambucca

Moderator
What are your thoughts?


Law enforcement authorities are developing "ballistics databases" and "bullet fingerprints" that will identify bullet casings and fired bullets, and match them to the guns that fired them. They claim despite the cost, the project is worthwhile to help stop crime and has the full support of law-enforcement officials.

However, The National Academy of Sciences has released a report saying such tools are still in the dream stage, current technology would yield a data set so large that too many false matches would occur and make the results useless, and the idea that guns and shells have unique "fingerprints" that are actually useable, "has not yet been fully demonstrated scientifically."

The report goes on to praise ballistics as a crime-fighting tool, but notes that, with millions of guns sold annually, the logistics of any tracking system are monumental.
 
I can change the ballistic signature of my handgun by:
1. Replacing the barrel
2. Replacing the firing pin and installing a lighter firing pin spring (deeper primer indentation as a result)
3. Slight and gentle filing of the extractor, or replacement of extractor.

At this point, with less than $150 in parts, I have completely and totally rendered impotent any government database containing my supposed ballistic signature of my firearm. As long as I load my magazines while wearing gloves to avoid fingerprinting the brass, I can hold up 7-11's, do drive-by's or a dozen other criminal activities with relative impunity as long as the only evidence available are the cartridge casings I leave at the scene.

And when I'm all done I can restore my weapon to the original configuration, then hide or destroy the altered parts if law enforcement may be closing in on me. Ballistic checks of my firearm, when they get a warrant, will be useless. Rifling/chamber-marks/firing-pin/extractor-marks will all be different.
 
Even if this helped to solve cases and convict felons (which it won't), it wouldn't matter anyway since the judges will let 'em off after 6 months of good behavior, just like they do now. That's where the problem really is.

It's amazing that most gun grabbers are the same people that are soft on criminals and sentences :mad:
 
The first thing you need to do is point out that there is no such thing as "Ballistic Fingerprint". What is actually being discussed in what should be called "Ballistic Snapshot". Like a snapshot it only applies for that limited time and place that it is taken. As time passes the subject of a snapshot will change and so will the ballistic identifiers. Ballistic identifiers are probably only good for a short part of an active firearms life. The more rounds fired the more they change. This was shown by the California Highway Patrol study which said after 200-500 rounds the snapshot no longer jibed with the actual firearm.

Always correct "Ballistic Fingerprint" with more appropiate term "Ballistic Snapshot".
 
Actually you can completely change the "ballistic fingerprint" in 30 seconds with a 25 cent peice of sand paper, no part changing is necessary.
Run the sand paper down the barrel and chamber, over the breech face, and firing pin and Viola new fingerprint old one gone!!
 
Ballistic Snapshot is a very good description

What these "ballisitc fingerprint" laws are really all about in not reality, it is the perception of reality. That, and the boondogle waste of taxpayer money, providing jobs in the govt/police bureaucracy.

They are a pain to gun makers and importers, they are costly, as easily shown they are inaccurate (because, unlike a biological fingerprint, mechanical markings change over time (use), and do NOT regrow to the original pattern like human fingerprints!)

Maryland (I believe) has such a requirement (fired cases database), and has over the past few years spent millions of dollars without having any of it be of any use at all in ANY criminal case.

It will be the same where ever these things are enacted. Total waste of our money and resources, with the only benefit being the employment of people to manage the database. And likely, the way these things tend to work, they won't even hire anybody to do that, just take somebody off something that might actually be useful and put them on the ballistic fingerprint database. Or just add it to the duties of someone, meaning that they have less time to spend doing their real job, which amounts to the same thing.

The same goes for the bills calling for microstamping guns, and serial numbers for individual bullets. It is B.S. that will not, and cannot work in the real world, but sounds good in the press, and makes people who don't understand reality look like they are "doing something" about a problem.

The real fact of the matter is that even the common ordinary "matching" of fired bullets and cases to crime guns is not necessarily as clear cut a thing as it seems to be on CSI or Law & Order. And, in a court, it doesn't need to be, as most of the time all the prosecutor needs to do is convince the jury. The actual facts may not be needed. Go watch the movie "My Cousin Vinnie" for a good cinematic presentation of how the facts can be built into a strong case, without being a truthful recreation of what actually happened.

They don't have to match the bullet/case to the gun to convict. They don't even have to have the gun to convict. All they have to have is an argument that convinces the jury. Easier with an "expert" telling them half truths, or even truths slanted a certain way, especially if there is no defense "expert" able to or available to rebut.

How do the ballisitic fingerprint databases work with a shotgun? How do the work if there are no caseings ? They don't. But the DA can still get a conviction, if he can prove motive, opportunity, and the fact that you have a shotgun!
 
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