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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Posted on 10/09/2002 5:55:08 AM PDT by SJackson
Proponents of Maryland's ''ballistic fingerprinting'' law -- enacted two years ago as a new tool in the war against gun crime -- have some explaining to do, considering a string of sniper shootings during the past few days in the Maryland suburbs just outside Washington, D.C.
The Maryland law applies only to handguns, while the serial killer, or killers, used a rifle. But even if the law did include rifles, neither it nor a push for similar ballistic-fingerprinting laws across the nation would provide a serious crime-fighting tool. Before looking to expand the use of ballistic fingerprinting, lawmakers should ask how successful the Maryland law has been so far.
The answer is a no-brainer. Ballistic fingerprinting has not solved or prevented a single gun crime in Maryland. Chances are, it never will.
For ballistic fingerprinting to work as intended, a shell casing and/or bullet must be recovered at a crime scene. Markings on the bullet or casing must match those from a gun in a database. That gun must be found in the possession of the criminal who used it.
Since the majority of armed criminals use stolen guns, tracing a gun to its original owner accomplishes nothing.
Supporters of ballistic fingerprinting don't tell you that a criminal can easily confound the system by changing the gun barrel or the firing pin, or otherwise altering the firearm. Gun experts know this. Ballistic-fingerprint proponents are not gun experts.
Consider the enormous cost of this program, estimated by the National Rifle Association to be $5,000 per shell casing. The computer system housing this information cost Maryland taxpayers $1.1 million. By one estimate, it takes another $750,000 annually to operate the system. At a time of shrinking state budgets, can Maryland taxpayers really afford this program?
Maryland's ballistic-fingerprinting law has accomplished only what its opponents predicted. It has bogged down legal firearms purchases and created a de facto gun registry, two consequences that penalize law-abiding citizens while doing nothing to prevent the recent sniper shootings in the Washington suburbs. That, in itself, is an outrage for which proponents of ballistic fingerprinting should share the blame.
Alan Gottlieb is chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation.
In the future I might drive across the border to MD to buy my guns. Given enough time, I think I can bankrupt them.
Funny, but what they DON'T say is that NOT ONE CRIME HAS EVER BEEN SOLVED BECAUSE OF THIS SILLY LAW. Besides, guns aren't allowed in The Peoples' Republic of Maryland so there's nogun crime there, right?
It just goes to show how stupid the gun control advocates really are.
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Even more important, there is no way of classifying the mechanical marks on a casing, while there is a classification system for human fingerprints. That means a suspect case must be compared against every case of the same type in their "database" in order to see if there's a match.
Even human fingerprints are not an exact science. It's only an approximation that eliminates most fingerprints, but still requires study by experts to see if there's a match with all the other prints in that category.
If you already have a suspect, even the print of one finger is good enough to either confirm or eliminate him from consideration. But if you're dealing with a totally unknown person, you need all ten good fingerprints to classify the prints into a long string of numbers.
That takes you to the FBI database, where there may be none, one, or hundreds of prints that have that same code. Experts then have to compare individual details to determine if they really have their suspect.
I was at a trade show where one vendor was showing a digital fingerprint system designed to give quick analysis of a thumbprint on an ID card for an identity check. The salesman compared my thumbprint to his, and the system said I was him! It turned out our thumbs had prints that were enough alike that they were passed through the rather loose standards of his system.
Human fingerprinting still has a bit of black magic involved. "Ballistic fingerprinting" is totally shuck and jive.
Another example is mandatory firearms safety training. The "training" consists solely of watching a 20 minute video. The video isn't bad, though of course it is pretty basic. One would hope that any responsible gun owner would want to know far more about firearms and firearm safety than he would ever learn from this video. However, even this video is required only for purchasers of handguns. Like the "ballistic fingerprint" procedure, it is not required for purchasers of rifles. Apparently if you are buying a rifle or a shotgun, safety training is not needed? This is the kind of thinking that makes Maryland what it is.
And now we can expect our RAT gubernatorial candidate, Kathleen KENNEDY Townsend, to milk every ounce of gun prohibition she can out of the sniper shootings. She is working up to it already.
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