New gun act please read

[damage]

From 20 Dec 99 NYTimes

U.S. to Develop a System for `Fingerprinting' Guns

By FOX BUTTERFIELD
In a long-sought move that will help identify guns used in crimes when only
their shell casings are left at a crime scene, the Clinton administration
said yesterday that it was tripling the budget for the development of a
unified national database of shell casings and bullets, and that one major
handgun maker had agreed to start providing the federal government with
information when new guns are test-fired.

"This system is very exciting and has the potential to do for gun crime what
fingerprints have done for forensics," Bruce Reed, the White House domestic
policy adviser, said.

The new system, to be run by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms, will work toward creating a virtual fingerprint for newly
manufactured handguns by using a computer analysis of the unique markings a
gun leaves on shell casings when it is fired, another administration official
said.

The gun maker that will cooperate with the government is the United States
unit of the Austrian company Glock GmbH.

Paul Januzzo, Glock's general counsel, said, "As long as this is aimed at
crime control, not gun control, we will support it."

Giving the firearms agency gun fingerprints "will speed up the gun tracing
process incredibly," said Mr. Januzzo, a former prosecutor.

He added that giving the government the information could also help the
firearms industry in a complex set of lawsuits filed against it by 28 cities
and counties as well as by the Department of Housing and Urban Development,
and in parallel negotiations between lawyers for the cities and the gun
companies. Mr. Reed joined those negotiations last week on behalf of the
White House.

The cities have demanded that the firearms manufacturers develop a serial
number that would be harder to obliterate. "If you have a system with gun
fingerprints, it is better than serial numbers that can be tampered with,"
Mr. Januzzo said. "It may also do away with another demand by the people who
want to put us out of business, registration of all gun owners, because you
already have the gun registered."

The new system relies on the computer analysis of marks made on shell
casings, including those caused by firing pins and those pressed on the
breach face of the casing during an explosion, as well as another unique
signature left when the casing is ejected.

Glock will begin feeding information on all its newly manufactured
nine-millimeter handguns into a machine provided by the firearms agency that
was developed by a Montreal company, Forensic Technology. Mr. Reed said he
hoped that the the agency would eventually get test-fire information on all
Glock's guns, as well as those made by other leading manufacturers, including
Smith & Wesson and Colt's Manufacturing, which are now monitoring the pilot
project in cooperation with the government and Glock.

The new system has another important effect: it will put an end to a
long-running feud between the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, which had developed two competing,
noncompatible technologies to obtain ballistic information on guns, bullets
and shell casings.

The system, to be known as the National Integrated Ballistics Information
Network, was developed by representatives of the two federal agencies and the
Boston Police Department. Police officials in Boston had found that to obtain
complete ballistics information, they had to spend money to acquire
technology from both agencies.

To create the new system, Mr. Reed said, the White House will increase the
budget for ballistics work from just under $10 million a year to more than
$30 million, with 230 local and state law enforcement agencies expected to
have access to the new system within two years.

The new ballistics identification system and the program to enter test-fire
information from Glock are part of a quiet effort by the Clinton
administration to develop more effective ways to combat gun crime despite a
political impasse in Congress and several state legislatures over new gun
control bills.

 

[TMB2]

"---effort by the Clinton administration to develop more effective ways to combat gun crime despite a political impasse in Congress and several state legislatures over new gun control bills." Again, the subtle media message that gun control is crime control!!
This is just the latest Clinton attempt to indict guns as the cause of crime. It seems like an expensive solution to a non-problem when you consider that less than 4% of the guns in public hands are involved in a crime in any given year (much less fired in the commission of a crime) and that the firearm most used in crime is a .38 caliber revolver.

 

[Lavan]

They have had that technology for years. Only an idiot would use an auto for nefarious purposes. I even read one case where they sorted all the casings at a range to find evidence on either Oswald or McVeigh or someone. Firing pins and breech faces leave distinctive marks. Simple to match a case to a gun. Only difference seems to be creating the database at the manufacturer. The article I read said Glock would be the 1st to provide this service to Bigbrudder.

 

[Jim V]

So what would that do? A new firing pin, extractor, ejector and barrel along with carefull stoning of the breech face negates any of this. Hell, firing a few hundred rounds will change some of those markings.

------------------
Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
"If there be treachery, let there be jehad!"

 

[Spyderman]

All that $$ spent on this and as soon as criminals figure it out, they'll be taking a rat tail file to various parts of the firing mechanism to alter the prints left on the shell casing. Besides, the differences they are analyzing would be altered entirely if you were to have the firing pin replaced, or the ejector, what about swapping barrels? New barrels for Glocks are available through mail order (fairly annonymous) and since many of them are provided by aftermarket sources, I doubt they will be test fired. Not to mention the fact that even if they were tested, they wouldn't be accurate since your only buying a barrel, and not a bolt, etc. This is just another way to waste taxpayers $$ while attempting (poorly) to solve a non-problem. Besides, this database would be useless, even if all the factors I mentioned didn't apply, without a national gun registration system to go with it. What good is knowing that the bullet found is from Gun model X with serial number 123456 if you dont know that serial number 123456 is registered to Joe Doe of Boston Mass, at 444 Main Street? Hey Bill - Stop wasting our money.

 

[TEC9]

Yeah, let's see how the hell much this will cost us.

 

[TMB2]

Spyderman - I think you just put your finger on the "pulse" of the issue. Once the government collects all this data, then guess what? They'll have to close the "loophole" you just described and a Federal gun registry will be just the thing to close the "loophole." Clever people these socialists!

 

[hoosierboy]

lavan you hit the nail on the head. Just use a revolver in a crime and take the shells home with you. If only criminals were smart enough they could beat the system. Also, here in Indiana we aren't forced by law to register our guns so what good would it do them anyways?

 

[slickpuppy]

If you bought your guns from an ffl you are already registered. Its called Form 4473.