anyways, for the lazy criminal:
Posted on 09/12/2006 9:18:26 AM PDT by kiriath_jearim
Cars are easier to trace than guns, says Pacific Grove Police Chief Carl Miller. But new technology, he hopes, might change that.
Vehicle identification numbers follow cars from owner to owner all the way back to the production line. But many handgun traces don't go that far because not all states require firearm registration, Miller says.
"With firearms, I would say 40 percent of what we find is unregistered."
Matching a bullet casing stamp to a handgun's serial number could change that.
For the last two years, California legislators have pushed bills backing microstamping technology that would do just that. The latest attempt, Assembly Bill 352 died last session in the Senate.
Opponents called the bill costly and the technology ineffective.
The bill, first offered by Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, in February 2005, would have required all handguns in California to have microstamping technology installed on the firing pin by 2009.
"I'm terribly disappointed," Koretz said Friday. "This would have been a great tool for law enforcement and one I believe that would have been followed all over the country."
Using a ballistic ID tag, a technology developed in Seattle, the handgun's serial number would be etched onto the firing pin. The mark would be transferred directly onto the shell in four locations after discharge. Contingency stamps are built into the design in the event that someone attempts to file off the tip of the firing pin.
In a crime scenario, police would be able to track the serial number from the shell to the handgun owner, using state and federal handgun registries, and establish new leads in a case.
The aim of the law, said Sandra Debourlando, Koretz's chief of staff, is to expedite ballistics testing, aid law enforcement and possibly identify illegal gun trafficking patterns.
"This is about making it easier to trace crime handguns," Debourlando said.
Federal background checks are in place to prevent convicted felons from purchasing rifles and handguns. But other than age requirements, there are no guidelines for ammunition sales.
Eighteen-year-olds are allowed to buy cartridges for rifles and shotguns, and anyone older than 21 can buy ammunition for handguns.
By matching a cartridge to a handgun, microstamping would allow law enforcement to track a gun by linking it to the used ammunition.
Though the federal government once attempted to track ammunition sales and regulate dealers, those provisions of the 1968 Gun Control Act were repealed 20 years ago. Ammunition sales are no longer tracked, and ammunition sellers aren't required to hold anything more than a business license. Firearms dealers, on the other hand, must have a federal license.
AB 352 enjoyed the support of more than 40 California chiefs of police, including Miller, even though Pacific Grove's last homicide involving a firearm was more than four years ago, Miller said. Anthony Joel Estrada, a Salinas gang member, was convicted of that crime.
But, he recalled, police were able to build a case after investigators made a ballistics match to the crime gun with bullets found at the scene of the crime.
"Most crimes are committed with semiautomatic pistols, not revolvers," Miller said. Unlike revolvers, semiautomatics leave behind spent shell casings, he said.
Miller was the only local law enforcement leader publicly endorsing the bill. But its supporters included an array of law enforcement officials across the state, from Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton to San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris. The cities of Oakland, Los Angeles and Sacramento as well as the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors stood behind the bill.
"It was the support that made this viable," explained Koretz. "It was the police chiefs, a handful of sheriffs and all the cities that got behind this bill."
Last year, the bill was dogged by accusations of enabling a single company to profiteer from the proposed law because of copyrighted technology.
But accusations of a government-ordered technological monopoly were countered when the company that developed the microstamping technique announced it would give the technology away for free.
On June 20, ID Dynamics Nanomark said it would give royalty-free licenses to firearm manufacturers with plants in the United States to ensure proper implementation of the California bill.
Andrea Mourningham, a legislative assistant for one opponent of the bill, the National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO), said that despite free technology, the cost of implementation would get passed on to consumers and police officers alike.
Other national organizations watched the advance of the bill as well.
"AB 352 is a tremendous means of helping law enforcement catch criminals," said Ellyen Bell, the California state field director for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
She called the bill key to the Brady Campaign in California. Staff members at the group's headquarters in Washington, D.C., said regardless of the outcome, they will continue to work as advocates for the technology.
The National Rifle Association came out against AB 352 and asked its members to call their state representatives to fight the bill. It was also quick to announce the bill's defeat.
When asked to explain its opposition to the bill, the NRA deferred to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a national trade association for the firearms industry.
"We just think it's ill-considered and, at best, premature," said Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice president and general council for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Keane called the microstamping technology unreliable, citing a recently published peer review questioning its reliability.
The serial stamp can be obliterated with household tools "in a matter of seconds," Keane said, and a handgun firing pin can be quickly removed and replaced.
Todd Lizotte, one of the microstamping inventors, admits that the technology, like any other, can be circumvented by dedicated criminals.
"Any technology can be defeated if you're highly intelligent and care about these things," Lizotte said.
But the technology was invented to fit the profile of certain criminals: street thugs and gang members who pick up guns cheaply for quick missions and don't think twice about discarding guns once their criminal purpose is achieved.
Most street criminals are not sophisticated, Lizotte argues. While it would be easy for a gun enthusiast or collector to remove and replace a firing pin, that's not the case for gang members and thugs.
"The idea is, most of these people don't care because it's likely a stolen weapon they got through trafficking."
And illegal firearm trafficking, he says, is what prompted his interest in developing this technology.
"Analyze it intellectually... we're not talking about criminal masterminds, and you're not going to stop the random, instantaneous act of crime, but you can track and stop the flow of firearms to those people."
Lizotte's background is in microstamping technology for computer inkjets and semiconductor chips. He calls himself a "Second Amendment guy" and boasts of his membership in the NRA and voting record as a Republican. Lizotte laughs to himself that the money he donates to the NRA's legislative action fund has likely been used against his own product, but he doesn't mind.
He is familiar with all the arguments against it by industry officials, the NRA and even criminalists and lab technicians who have sought to discredit the technology. He welcomes the scientific testing that has been done on it because he says it's more data to examine and cull from.
A few days after AB 352 was defeated, Lizotte said he wasn't surprised with the Assembly vote. Chalking it up to "politics are politics," he says the technology will still be available if the demand returns.
"If anything, law enforcement lost, and in reality, the only ones that won were the criminals," Lizotte said.
"I hope next time we have Assembly members that will make a gutsy vote because it's not easy to oppose the NRA," said Koretz, who has termed out of office.
Miller, like Lizotte, said he is also familiar with the debates the technology has prompted and listened to its detractors.
The marking technology and the bill are innovative, he explains of his support: "It's not going to help in every situation, but it's one more tool at our disposal," Miller said. "It's a place to start."
"Unlike revolvers, semiautomatics leave behind spent shell casings, he said."
***
The semiautos may leave the casings behind, but a clever perp will pick them up.
The inventor of this technology is doing a damn good job of explaining why it is utterly useless.
Idiots.
I replaced the barrel on my SIG P226 after 35,000 rounds.
I replaced the .357sig barrel on my P229 with a Bar-Sto .40SW barrel.
Most of my firing pins have been replaced years ago.
You aren't analyzing it intellectually Mr. Lizotte if you make the first statement which is spot on and then make the second statement. If you were truely analyzing it intellectually you would realize that you can't stop or track the flow of firearms to criminals that use stolen weapons because there is no paper trail from the time it is stolen. All that the stamping is going to do is tell you that someone's stolen firearm was used, but not who used it so there is no lead on who to arrest.
A really clever perp will pick up YOUR casings at the range and leave them at the crime scene.
But it will give the lawyers someone to sue for "negligently" allowing their arm to be stolen from their locked cabinet or gun safe.
"Unlike revolvers, semiautomatics leave behind spent shell casings, he said."
revolvers are usually cheaper anyway. semis are only good (in most criminal hands) for intimidation or spray and pray.
besides, anymore you can get high cap revolvers.
"No brass, no ammo, sergeant!"
How many are committed with a gun that the user is in legal possession of? I'm betting that most guns used by people engaged in crimes like burglary, robbery, etc. are stolen or come from illegal resales.
You summed it up perfectly.
Yes. Or else a really, really clever perp will pick up the casings at a range known to be used by 1 or more local, state or federal agencies...and will then use a revolver or shotgun, or a stolen gun. No one will find them, at least not based on this information.
Oh, and did anyone ever hear of a Dremel tool? Or switching out a firing pin?
I thought that this moronic attempt to register civilian guns had run its course and disappeared, but apparently not.
The bill, first offered by Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, in February 2005, would have required all handguns in California to have microstamping technology installed on the firing pin by 2009
Idiots! Criminals will just start picking up their brass or using revolvers which don't leave brass as long as the perp can hit what he's aiming at in 6 rounds or less.
Bingo!
All a perp needs is a set of shell casings from someone else and he is magically off the hook while some law abiding citizen gets charged with a felony.
That alone should disqualify it from ever becoming law: Its too easy to frame others.
"Police your brass!"
Gun control zealots think the 2nd amendment is a bad thing. They dislike the reality that an armed society is a polite society, and, more guns less crime. They want citizens to be defenseless and thus at the mercy of the State to protect them. Yet every court has said that LEOs can't be held accountable for failing to protect the victim. The courts have said it's not LEOs job to protect persons from criminals, rather, the LEOs job is to enforce the laws.
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