Posted on 06/13/2012 5:16:37 PM PDT by neverdem
Identifying the firearm used in a crime is one of the biggest challenges for criminal investigators. But what if a shell casing picked up at a murder scene could immediately be tracked to the gun that fired it?
A technique that uses laser technology and stamps a numeric code on shell casings can do just that. But the technology, called microstamping, has been swept up in the larger national debate over gun laws and Second Amendment rights, and efforts to require gun makers to use it have stalled across the nation.
“I think it is one of these things in law enforcement that would just take us from the Stone Age to the jet age in an instant,” said Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld III of the Baltimore Police Department. “I just can’t comprehend the opposition to it.”
But legislation proposed in several states to require manufacturers of semiautomatic weapons to use the technology has met with fierce opposition. Opponents, including the gun industry and the National Rifle Association, argue that microstamping is ineffective and its cost prohibitive. They say the proposed system would unfairly focus on legal gun owners when most crimes are committed with illegally obtained guns.
The issue has become so heated that in New York, where the State Assembly is expected to debate a microstamping bill as early as Wednesday, one gun maker, the Remington Arms Company, has threatened to pull its business out of the state if the bill becomes law...
--snip--
The National Shooting Sports Foundation has estimated that microstamping would increase the cost of a firearm by “well over $200,” according to a fact sheet it issued, but advocates say the cost to manufacturers would be less than $12 a gun — a cap imposed as a condition of the New York Assembly bill...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
As we know, all gang bangers always go through the proper legal channels to obtain a gun they plan on using in a murder.
In the versions of legislation that I've seen, messing with the micro-stamping is a crime. So if you have a gun whose paperwork indicates that it was micro-stamp when sold, and the micro-stamping is now illegible (whether from filing it off, or just normal wear), then you are in trouble.
To the gun grabbers, the value of this is that it provides yet another way to give legal troubles to gun owners.
“My second thought is that it would be simple to go to the local gun range and pick up some spent microstamped casings to leave a crime scene after picking up mine.”
Excellent! You commit the murder, and then 20 citizens with air tight alibis are ‘proven’ to be guilty.
I can see it now: “Your honor, 20 guys living in another state, who have never met each other, banded together and committed the murder...”
“In the versions of legislation that I’ve seen, messing with the micro-stamping is a crime.”
Yes, and criminals wouldn’t commit a crime like that...murder, maybe, but NOT filing a microstamp in violation of the law!
This is just another plan to harass the innocent while letting the guilty do as they please.
Only if you did not know much about firearms, would this idea seem sensible. It sure will be easy to frame someone else. Just reload their brass and viola! They become the perp.
I have a lot of firearms that don’t squirt casings everyhere.
Liberals and other Nanny-State control freaks aren’t comfortable unless they know the government is monitoring and controlling the activities of everyone else.
The intrusion into our personal freedom is past the unbearable stage and getting worse daily.
Drones watching us from the sky, cameras and facial recognition software watching every street corner, schoolkids can’t bring a home packed lunch to school, shutting down little kid’s lemonade stands, telling us what size softdrink we can buy, telling retaurants what kind of ingredients they can use and how big their servings can be, GPS tracking devices in vehicles and telephones.
How long before we are required to have ID chips and GPS devices implanted at birth?
The only things they don’t want to control are the nations borders, illegal aliens, fraudulent voting, pedophilia, pre-teen sex, welfare cheating, dope smoking.....
Wasn’t ‘ballistic fingerprinting’ supposed to do the same thing? And didn’t that solve exactly zero cases in the end?
**A technique that uses laser technology and stamps a numeric code on shell casings can do just that.**
An application of emory cloth or lapping compound will fix that.
I can see some perverse criminal with a case of replacement firing pins ... a new firing pin for each new crime!
More anti-gun bullsh*t from some pen pusher who never bothered to do her homework.
Criminals would simply use revolvers, while all the rest of the nation bore the cost of yet another expensive - and utterly worthless - bureaucracy.
Let’s hope this trivial and nonsensical notion is dead in the water, as it should be.
Bull-hockey! It is backdoor registration. Nothing less.
Exactly.
There have been murders commited with police firearms.
I’m sure they’d love to set an example and lead by example.
“...Second, these morons should understand that using a revolver does not eject brass,...”
Oh, they understand all right. Calling them “morons”, “dumbasses”, etc., is a mistake.
They know exactly what they’re doing. There’s ZERO ignorance on the part of the people dreaming this crap up.
If Revolvers negate it, they they can try to ban revolvers; it gives them a ready-made excuse to try and outlaw a common, ubiquitous, and relatively inexpensive type of firearm.
If they can succeed in banning revolvers (a class of firearms, if you will), the next step is banning another class, that being semi-autos.
Look what they tried back in 1994 with the so-called “assault weapons” ban; if it LOOKED like an evil black rifle, it WAS an evil black rifle. That was a failed attempt at banning an entire class of rifles and longarms. Thankfully, it failed, but only because we kicked and screamed and didn’t quit.
It’s all just one more step to them. Three steps forward, one step back.
We must absolutely NOT give in to ANYTHING they other side wants - ever. It’s suicidal to compromise with people who want to leave you helpless.
Our answer should and must always be “Go-F-Yourself” when they bring up ANYTHING regarding firearms.
And if politicians on “our” side of the aisle go wobbly on us, they need to be made to understand that there will be election repercussions, swift, and immediate, up to and including recall efforts where such are available.
Failing “G-F-Y”, our answer should always be “Molon Labe”.
Seems to be their theme for pretty much everything these days.
I agree.
Good comments NFHale. I agree with you. I would only add that every time the Left files for more legislation, we should file ten times that many repeals to current legislation.
Well,... nothing, as this would only be useful if all the guns were registered and none were stolen. As the first is politically suicidal and abhorrent to free people, and the second has never been preventable, even in prisons, the idea is simply a way to promote a citizen disarmament scheme.
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