Posted on 03/10/2005 10:45:44 AM PST by neverdem
State police head testifies to committee on report calling system ineffective
The head of the Maryland State Police testified yesterday that a mandate to collect ballistics information hasn't helped solve crimes, while advocates of the law blamed the state police for its ineffectiveness.
In a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Col. Thomas E. "Tim" Hutchins would not say whether he personally supports a bill that would repeal the law. But he testified about a state police report that calls the Integrated Ballistics Identification System, or IBIS, expensive and ineffective.
As a result of that September 2004 report, Del. Joan Cadden, an Anne Arundel Democrat, sponsored a bill that would repeal the law requiring the collection of the ballistics information.
IBIS was created in 2000 to amass a database of ballistic markers by requiring gun manufacturers to test-fire them and submit the cartridge casings to state police. Technicians then make a digital image of the unique markings and enter them into the database for future comparison. The markings often are referred to as "ballistic fingerprints."
Hutchins testified yesterday that 43,729 casings have been entered into IBIS, and the database has been used 208 times. Six "hits" have resulted from those inquiries, but none resulted in criminal prosecutions. In four years, $2.5 million has been spent on IBIS, Hutchins said.
Teresa M. Long, assistant director of the state police forensic sciences division, said flawed information from gun manufacturers also is a problem.
IBIS advocates, however, are opposed to the bill.
"We know that these databases take time to get running," said Joshua Horwitz, executive director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence.
Horwitz said the problems noted in the state police report can be remedied. Another advocate, Casey Anderson of CeaseFire Maryland, said the state police also should seek permission...
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
I hope that there is a 1-to-1 correspondence between the number of casings entered in the database and the number of handguns sold in MD in the past 4 years. That would be encouraging news in this gun-forsaken state.
That's around 8,500 handguns per year for MD. With a population of around 3.85 million adults here, that's 220 new handguns per 100K population per year.
The rate for notoriously gun unfriendly California was around 650 per 100K in 2001.
The rate for the US as a whole is around 800 per 100K.
Nothing encouraging here. Maryland is just as unfriendly to self defense rights as it appears to be.
5,508,500 per census
8,500 handguns per year makes it 648 per 100K, almost identical to CA.
I am in CA and bought 7 in the last year, holding up my end.
That law was never intended to solve crimes, it was intended to reduce firearm sales by making them more expensive and more difficult for manufacturers to get to store shelves. I hope they scrap that POS IBIS system and charge whatever nitwit lawmaker that came up with it the $2.5 million that it cost us Maryland taxpayers!
Every database with which I've ever worked was running just a minute or two after the O/S booted! ;-)
$2.5 million / 43,729 = $57.17 per casing
Yet again proving that liberalism is dangerous to liberty and prosperity.
About 30% of the population is under 21, and should not be included in the calculation.
Your math is off. Divide sales by population, not population by sales.
In the liberal universe, it's not results that count - it's good intentions that count.
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