Gun IDs

The main thing really wrong with this idea is that it’s totally unworkable. If you want to spend a few hundred million directly in building this, and a few billion in indirect costs, in order to make yourself feel like you’ve ‘done something’, then maybe it has value.

As a law enforcement tool, it’s totally worthless.

So let’s say this system is in place. There are photos on file of 100 million gun signatures. You arrest a subject, and take a ballistic fingerprint of his gun.

How in hell are you going to match it against 100 million signatures? Gonna put an army of ballistics experts to work for a couple of years to find one signature?

If you’re expecting computers to do the matching, I think that’s highly unlikely. It’s taken us a couple of decades of work to get fingerprint matching relatively accurate. Ballistic signatures are much different, because they are ‘fuzzy’. You don’t get exact matches - after each bullet is fired out of a gun, the signature changes subtly. After a few years, I doubt you could make a match at all, even by visual examination.

This is just yet another huge bureaucracy that would be totally ineffective and very expensive.

Here in Canada, we have recent experience with such ‘feel-good’ legislation. We now have a national ‘gun registry’. Everyone is supposed to have their guns registered with the government. This is much simpler than the ballistic fingerprinting idea - it’s just a big database of gun serial numbers and owners.

Several years after it was made law, it has an extremely low rate of acceptance - many gun owners are simply ignoring it. Plus, the database is apparently broken, police departments are screwing up the records by accident, there is no funding for local jurisdictions to manage it, etc. It’s a mess. And I don’t believe it has been helpful in solving a single crime. Because, as you might guess, the people who commit crimes with guns tend to not volunteer them for registration. Nor will they volunteer them for ballistic fingerprinting.

And if they’re using a gun that has been ‘fingerprinted’, you can bet the first thing they are going to do is take a wire brush to the inside of the barrel and modify the extractor and firing pin to make a match impossible. And you can bet that detailed instructions for doing that will be on the internet within hours of such a law passing, if it’s not there now.

The key here, I think, is the “almost exactly” part. They’re still different. But consider: a Colt .45 barrel doesn’t have to come from Colt. It can be bought as military surplus, a new high-dollar target piece, or anywhere in between. It can come from any of a number of manufacturers. Ever change the barrel on an AR-15? Not too hard. With practice I’ll bet you could do it in five minutes. Heck, you can keep an extra upper receiver assembly complete with a new bolt and firing pin and change the whole thing in s few seconds. And those barrels are also available from scads of makers with different rifling twists and different lengths, brand-new and Vietnam-era surplus.

The point is not that it would not be very difficult to differentiate between bits of forensic evidence; rather, it’s that in seconds or minutes the weapon could be configured so that it does not match the forensic evidence.

This article says it doesn’t work, according to a study done by California state ballistics experts.

Ramming a rat tail file down the existing barrel will accomplish this, thus eliminating the need for a new barrel.

Also, what about the hundreds of millions of guns already in existence? How are they going to get a print on all those?
Plus, many guns used in crimes are stolen and sold on the black market. Tracing a gun back to it’s registered owner does no good when you find out he had it stolen out of his house during a burlary.

Bad leap of logic on your part, buckaroo. The 2nd doesn’t say “Congress will give anyone a firearm”, it says, “The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” In other words, you won’t be GIVEN a gun, but you won’t be stopped from getting one on your own (generally).

Which is to say that if firearms or ammunition are made prohibitively expensive by government controls instead of normal economic controls, then that effectively “bans” people from owning them.

Which is exactly what has been attempted with certain types of ammunition already:

Or let me try to come up with an analogy, even though I’m currently in a caffeine deficit.

In the U.S., we have the right to travel freely (with few exceptions, for example, certain convicted criminals). In much of the country it is difficult to get around with a personal vehicle. Suppose the government required that all vehicles must pass an annual roadworthiness inspection that is as comprehensive as an annual inspection given to an aircraft. If the car does not have an endorsement in its log book stating that it is roadworthy (i.e., it has a valid “roadworthiness certificate”), then it may not be operated.

Many poor people would not be able to afford the inspection. Many who could, would not be able to repair their vehicles. They would be left afoot in places that do not have adequate public transportation. In places like Los Angeles many people cannot afford to live near where they work. If they can’t drive there and the busses don’t go there, then they have no jobs. No job menas no rent, and suddenly they’re homeless.

Now, I’m not suggesting that making guns cost a hundred-thousand dollars will force many people out of work (only several thousand or maybe a couple tens of thousand); but it would essentially ban poor people from owning guns and thus deprive them of a civil right.

(And yes, I know other countries have “roadworthiness” programs; but as with firearms, they are different cultures.)

OK, let me shoot down a few of these arguments:

[b[december’s** link to that foxnews story doesn’t contain any link to the original “October 2001 report by California state ballistics experts,” so there’s no way of judging the veracity of that statement. Not a contradiction, but I tried looking for that report and haven’t found any other mention.

Meanwhile, here’s my directl link to stories of how ballistic fingerprint is in use today, and how it’s being used to catch killers. This shows that the technology is already out there, it’s being used, and it’s successful.

This also shoots down Sam Stone’s contention that it’s unworkable. According to the information in the link, computers are being used to weed out those BF’s that don’t match. It does take humans to eyeball the candidates in order to make a final decision.

What is also good about this system is that the initial screening is done over computer networks. It means that the hard evidence (the bullets or guns) stays in the evidence lockers. This is especially important when cases cross state lines.

As for the arguments about switching barrels, filing the barrel, etc., I think that’s irrelevent. Most criminals are not going to do that. You might as well argue against putting cameras into convenience stores and banks “because criminals will all wear masks.” And forget about fingerprinting, “criminals will all wear gloves.”

Same argument would apply to the 200 million guns out there. Laws like these are meant to work over a long period of time. Yes, it may take 20 years before you get a large number of hits, but if the system is in place, it will happen.

What I would like to see is some authority speak about the possibility of degradation of the ballistic fingerprint over time. Does it really change the more times the weapon is fired?

Untrue. Sam’s contention about unworkability refers to ID-ing all handguns prior to their use. He contends that this would result in a massive database that will do no good for almost a century, and that the database is easily bypassed (by altering the barrel of the gun).

Your cite simply shows instances where bullets were linked to a class of gun, but not a single specific, individual gun. That’s why a full ID-ing system won’t work… because, essentially, it would result in a system where a single bullet might potentially match several thousand - or even several tens of thousands - of different guns.

Right now, with current ID systems, gun ID’s are circumstantial evidence only, and will not stand as reliable evidence on their own.

Now this is funny. Criminals won’t spend five seconds running a nail file inside the barrel of their gun to avoid getting caught? Do you assume that criminals WANT to be caught?

Please provide evidence that a lot of criminals don’t wear masks or gloves.

But that’s the thing… this law WON’T work, over the short or long term. A dedicated criminal can circumvent the law with almost no effort at all. All it will do is put unnecessary costs and hassles on people who will obey the law.

If it’s anything like the FBI’s fingerprint database it will be too expensive given the results. (copied from one of my other posts on this subject)

COST

For comparison, consider the FBI’s computerized (real) fingerprint database – Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). It cost $640 million to just implement about 34-35 million records (source <http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel99/iafis.htm>).

Thats about $19 per print just to set up the system. Just getting the estimated 200 million guns into the system would cost $3.8 billion (some estimates go up to 250 million guns = $4.75 billion).

Now let’s talk maintenance costs.

While I can’t find what FBI spends a year to maintain IAFIS, the system is significantly cheaper to maintain than a ballistic fingerprint system would be for two reasons:

  1. Real fingerprints do not change form over time. There would have to be a system to update the ballistic fingerprints every so often, or the records will become useless (see number 3 above). That updating is unneeded with IAFIS.

  2. Real fingerprints do not change owners. There would have to be a system to change the ownership records. (Yes, this would be de-facto national registration).

Incidentally, the system would have to be run by the federal government. The reason we got IAFIS was that the state-level and regional fingerprint systems did not speak to each other.

The fingerprint changes over time, and if you have any gunsmithing work done ie: new extractor, ejector, firing pin, or polished breechface, the “new” fingerprint needs to be taken. I would imagine new fingerprinting would need to be done each year. Otherwise the guns don’t match the database.

Besides, as stated above. this would essentially be a national registration database, which is illegal.

I bought another gun today. I didn’t mean to, but Walther PPK/Ss are scarce in California. The last time I tried to buy one (last year) I was told that they weren’t allowed here. Apparently Walther USA have modified the mechanism so it passes the “drop test” and they can be sold here now. Anyway, it’s a pretty little stainless steel model.

I noticed on the box it said “fired case”. I asked about this and was told it’s part of the ID program this thread is about. Now, I’m never going to use my new pistol as a weapon. That’s not why I buy firearms. But I’m very tempted to replace a few parts and the barrel just to thumb my nose at this scheme.

Exactly. But when has that stopped Congress from passing stupid laws based on emotion, not facts?

A good example of this is the “cop-killer bullet” law.

Why don’t the advocates of this national ballistic fingerprinting system advocate a national human fingerprint database? Think of the crimes we could solve!

And I hope the argument against it isn’t based on an individual’s right to privacy, because you’ve already tossed that out the window in the case of gun owners.

-True, but they don’t need to.

Anyone who has used or carried a firearm in any sort of damp weather or moist conditions knows barrels rust. Almost automatically.

Up here in Alaska, a hunting rifle can develop moderate rust on a weekend’s pack trip.

If you fire it, don’t clean it, keep it somewhere damp (crook sticks it in a waistband maybe?) and the barrel isn’t stainless steel (a good number are, but by no means all, or even a third) the barrel develops surface rust. The severity dependent on the residual powder and the moisture level.

Rust, even very mild- too mild to noticably affect accuracy- will alter the “fingerprint”. And this is a totally passive process: no one has to sit down and do anything drastic with a file or sandpaper. They just have to leave it in the car during a rainy/humid night. Or in the trunk. Or under the kitchen sink. Or live near a large river, lake or ocean. Or carry it in a sweaty waistband. Leave it in a jacket pocket after a rain. Stash it in the closet under some old clothes.

No interference necessary- indeed, in certain conditions, the owner has to go out of his way to keep it from happening.

As for actual wear, well, an extreme- very much so- example tells of an old gunsmith that “wildcatted” some oddball cartridges. Like necking down a large Weatherby case to .22. He got 4,500 to 5,000 fps velocities (the bullet tended to disintegrate in flight from the gyroscopic forces) and totally burned out the barrels’ forcing cone in six shots.

Had they stayed intact, those six bullets would not have been identifiable as coming from the same gun- the leade and rifling wore visibly with each shot.

Obviously, more sedate and common firearms don’t suffer that sort of fate, but the wear does occur. High-precision benchrest shooters might call a barrel “shot out” (as in no longer capable of maintaining the desired level of accuracy) within less than two hundred shots.

That, of course, doesn’t mean the barrel is unservicable- rather, it means that, instead of being able to generate .805" groups at 100 meters, it can only hold .960". Still remarkably accurate, but suggests that wear does occur, and within a fairly short period.

Here is the study done the the California Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Forensic Services, which I mentioned in an earlier post.