Ballistics statute faulted

The Washington Times ^ | January 18, 2005 | Brian Witte

[neverdem]

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The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com

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Ballistics statute faulted

By Brian Witte
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published January 18, 2005

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BALTIMORE -- A law requiring Maryland State Police to collect ballistics information from each handgun sold in the state should be repealed because the expensive system is flawed and has not helped a criminal investigation since it was adopted in 2000, a state police report has concluded.

    The report recommended transferring laboratory technicians who work on the Integrated Ballistics Identification System to the state police DNA Database Unit.

    "The program simply has not met expectations and does not aid in the mission statement of the Department of State Police," the report said.

    Col. Thomas E. Hutchins, the state police superintendent, said he would like to spend the money instead on proven crime-fighting techniques. About $2.5 million has been spent on the program.

    "The system really is not doing anything," Col. Hutchins said.

    Maryland was the first state to adopt a ballistic fingerprinting law in April 2000. New York is the only other state to have such a database.

    When a bullet is fired, it is scratched with unique markings, or "fingerprints," as it passes through the gun's barrel. The law requires gun manufacturers to test-fire handguns and send a spent shell casing from each gun sold in Maryland to the state police. The agency is required to enter the casing's markings into a database, using a digital image designed for future gun tracing.

    But the report, compiled in September by the Maryland State Police Forensic Sciences Division, concluded the ballistics identification system has failed "to provide any meaningful hits."

[Cobra64]

So what do they catalog, the bullet or the shell casing?

That is what I was wondering. Then I realized these jerks do not know the difference.

I'd send 'em a spent primer.

[Yo-Yo]

The bullet rifling marks are cataloged, and the shell casing firing pin and extraction marks are cataloged.

Sometimes at a shooting all one has to go on are spent shell casings, and extractor marks and/or firing pin marks have been enough to provide a match to a particular weapon.

But again, the marks left when new are almost never close to the marks left after years of use. Ballistics matching are usually only effective when there are few rounds between the test round and the crime scene round.

[nightdriver]

"I'd send 'em a spent primer."

LOL! Or some residue scrapings out of the inside of the spent brass!

[ex 98C MI Dude]

Or just change out the barrel and extractor and voila! Your handgun's 'ballistic fingerprint' is completely different. And since getting a barrel and extractor through the mail doesn't require an FFL, and these things are not difficult to change out (barrel very easy, extractor requires a little skill)...

Yet another waste of taxpayer money by the nanny.gov!

[King Prout]

it is truly aggravating that you are probably dead on the money on this.

[King Prout]

hell, a little emery, diamond paste, and a power drill does the same job in five minutes.

[PeterFinn]

While we're all getting a good chuckle at their foolishness these people are going to use this as an argument for banning guns altogether.

Because if you can't "properly" regulate them then you'll HAVE to ban them.

BTW - it's not as bad as one-time Sacramento City Councilmember Deborah Ortiz' (now a State Senator) brilliant idea to require the police department to develop technology to, no kidding, track the ballistic characteristics of *shotguns*. She pulled the idea after someone told her she was a laughing stock in certain circles at the SPD.