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.
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.