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Coalition Against Gun Violence |
Originally appeared in Newsletter Vol. x,
No. y, December 1999
When a gun is fired, identifying marks are made on the bullets and cartridge casings. Those marks, called ballistic fingerprints, are as unique as human fingerprints - no two firearms leave the same marks. The marks are also reproducible - every time a gun is fired, it leaves identical marks. The uniqueness and reproducible qualities of ballistic fingerprints can provide a critical tool to law enforcement for solving gun crimes by rapidly identifying the specific weapon that was used in a crime.
Federal law enforcement agents at the FBI and BATF have been using ballistic fingerprinting systems to match bullets to crime guns for more than a decade and have proven effective in helping catch criminals.
Jack Scott (D., Altadena) has introduced a bill (S. 35) proposing that California collect the data for later use as the technology improves and will keep pushing his bill while he joins others in pushing for a national effort. California Attorney General Lockyer said, "The expansion of the databases to include hundreds of thousands of newly-manufactured firearms has the potential to be a great crime solving tool for law enforcement officers. However, our analysis concludes that today's technology is not yet adequate to handle the volume associated with adding all new guns to the database." In California, where 80,000 new handguns were purchased in 2002 alone, the database would be too big to quickly narrow the pool of images for comparison purposes using existing technology. He feels the state should monitor the progress of more limited new handgun tracking systems in Maryland and New York. Other states are considering similar legislation, including: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Minnesota.
A nationwide tracking database ultimately will make more sense. The federal government has the money and experience, according to Lockyer's report, and to work properly the database needs to track guns in every state. To build a nationwide database, manufacturers would test fire their guns and submit a ballistic fingerprint for each gun for a centralized system. This would add a small cost to each gun; however, law enforcement could better match ballistics evidence at a crime scene to a specific gun, and then trace the gun. Trying to "beat the system" by filing the barrel or changing firing pins will not hide the identity from the system described below.
Forensic Technology Inc. of Montreal, Canada has been recognized as the leading technology authority in this area. Its premier product is the Integrated Ballistics Identification System, which is use by 29 countries around the world and is the industry standard for computerized ballistics matching.
Legislation has been introduced in Congress to establish a nationwide database S.3096 (Sen. Herb Kohl, D-WI) and S. 16 (Tom Daschle, D-SD) and H.R. 408 (U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, D-NJ). Contact your Senators and Representative asking them to support this legislation to fight crime.
U.S. Sen. Barbarba Boxer
Fax: (202) 956-6701
Website: http://boxer.senate.gov
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein
Fax: (202) 228-3954
Website: http://feinstein.senate.gov
U.S. Rep. Lois Capps
Tel: (805) 730-1710
Fax: (805) 730-9153
Website: http://www.house.gov/capps
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Copyright © 1999-2007 Coalition Against Gun Violence. All rights reserved.
A Project of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
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