Posted on 06/19/2012 6:18:35 AM PDT by marktwain
It sounds like something from a futuristic thriller: police pick up spent bullet shells, find a tiny code on them that reveals what gun they were shot from and then use the ID to track down the killer. The technology to do this, called microstamping, is actually available today, but what’s stopping it from being used — and many criminals from being caught — is politics.
There are battles raging across the U.S. over microstamping, with supporters of the new technology squaring off against the gun lobby, which is strongly opposed. It is hard to see why the critics are so upset — and why they put so little value on microstamping’s potential to help fight crime.
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Gun violence in the U.S. is an epidemic. American gun-ownership rates are the highest in the world, with a remarkable 88 guns per 100 people. America also ranks No. 1 out of the top 26 high- and middle-income countries in gun mortality. In an average year, almost 100,000 people in the U.S. are shot or killed with a gun.
When police investigate gun crimes, they are often stymied by a lack of evidence. Guns are involved in the vast majority of murders, and according to the FBI, nearly 40% of all killings go unsolved because of lack of evidence. In many shootings, bullet casings are the only tangible evidence police have.
This is where microstamping comes in. If it were required, every gun would need to have a microscopic code stamped on the tip of its firing pin. When a bullet leaves the gun, its shell casing would be stamped with the code, which could be retrieved from the casings found at crime scenes.
(Excerpt) Read more at ideas.time.com ...
Universal gun registration is effective gun confiscation. That is the golden ring that these "microstamping" proponents are aiming for.
The concept that the government could or should only “allow” certain people to buy guns stands the very concept of American jurisprudence on its head. It presumes that the government knows all, controls all, and should be doing so. It is wrong and ineffective. It is the opposite of preventing criminals from possessing guns.
It is crazy to set up a huge expensive bureaucratic system, require everyone to jump though hoops and prove that they are *not* criminals in order to try, ineffectively, to prevent the few individuals who are not responsible, from having legal access to guns. This is a failed paradigm, and it should be abandoned. To accept the idea that the all gun sales should be monitored by the government, and only allowed to those it deems satisfactory is fundamentally wrong.
The entire idea of the enterprise has always been the death of a thousand cuts, where the restrictions on who can buy, and where, and how and what are continually increased until the number of gun owners is reduced to political insignificance.
GUN REGISTRATION IS GUN CONFISCATION (old but good)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2608785/posts
“”This is where microstamping comes in. If it were required, every gun would need to have a microscopic code stamped on the tip of its firing pin. When a bullet leaves the gun, its shell casing would be stamped with the code, which could be retrieved from the casings found at crime scenes. The code could lead the police to the person who fired the gun — or at least to its original purchaser.””
Of course, the Bad Guys would be standing in line asking to have their illegally obtained guns microstamped before anyone else.
As someone here once mentioned to me: Police your brass, then throw a whole bunch of other shell casings around.
There are millions of guns in circulation without any such micro stamping, a new firing pin would leave no marks, someone could easily police their brass or use a revolver thus leaving nothing to examine....for these reasons it's not workable to try unique micro stamping.
Funny thing about all that violence. Criminals have a history and the revolving door policy for criminals by the justice system. Have to feed the attorneys, judges, and their children. Have to make work for law enforcement, in order that their children are fed. Must house a criminal, on death row for ten plus years and feed that criminal. Money for attorneys, judges, police, has to be spent on numerous appeals, in order that the children may eat. Then there are the law abiding, and the law abiding pick up the tab, so the criminal can be released to wreck more havoc, so more money can be spent on said criminal. One has to believe the justice system loves criminals. They (the criminals) are their meal tickets. Am willing to believe this is one of the reasons for opposition, in the politics.
In a NIH study on the prior criminal records of people who commit murder:
RESULTS: For 1990-2000, 42.6% of 884 cases had at least 1 felony conviction compared with 3.9% of nearly 7.9 million controls, for a population-attributable risk of 40.3% (95% CI, 37.0%-43.8%); among cases, 71.6% had experienced any arrest from 1990-2000 compared with 18.2% of controls, for a population-attributable risk of 65.3% (95% CI, 61.6%-68.8%). For 1996-2000, the population-attributable risk among individuals with a felony conviction or any arrest was 31.0% (95% CI, 27.9%-34.2%) and 58.5% (95% CI, 54.9%-62.1%), respectively.Translation: a large percentage of murders are committed by people with a history of crime. By keeping chronic violent criminals locked up until they are old, you can greatly reduce the homicide rate.
This is journalism. Fill it with “buzzwords” proverbial hand-wringing,a promotion of outdated conceptual technology as “groundbreaking” and top it off with a serious departure from facts and reality.
The dinosaur media indeed. What’s next and endorsement for Jim McGreevey’s “Smart-GUn” safety system?
This is journalism. Fill it with “buzzwords” proverbial hand-wringing,a promotion of outdated conceptual technology as “groundbreaking” and top it off with a serious departure from facts and reality.
The dinosaur media indeed. What’s next and endorsement for Jim McGreevey’s “Smart-GUn” safety system?
This is journalism. Fill it with “buzzwords” proverbial hand-wringing,a promotion of outdated conceptual technology as “groundbreaking” and top it off with a serious departure from facts and reality.
The dinosaur media indeed. What’s next and endorsement for Jim McGreevey’s “Smart-GUn” safety system?
This is a red herring to get gun registration in play, gun registration is the first step in gun confiscation. Lazy ass police investigators always come up with this crap to make their job simpler. What’s a constitutional right when compared to easy police work. Liberal cops are twice the danger to freedom as criminals!!
The idiots never learn.
The Constitution was not written to protect us from the bad guys......It was written to protect us from our government, our cops.....
Ever heard of a revolver?
Let's pass a law that anyone committing a crime must leave a photo ID at the scene of the crime.
See I can out “liberal lunatic” any liberal lunatic on the block.
Maybe he plans on being the camp guard this time?
One word:
Revolver.
The question that should be asked is this: How is this supposed to be any different or superior in practice to the ballistic fingerprinting database already in existence in Maryland and New York? The Maryland one has only been able to provide useful information in exactly one case, at a cost of $2.6 million per conviction.
The New York one has never solved a case.
It gets worse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_fingerprinting
“
A California Department of Justice survey, using 742 guns used by the California Highway Patrol as a test bed, showed very poor results; even with such a limited database, less than 70% of cases of the same make as the “fingerprint” case yielded the correct gun in the top 15 matches; when a different make of ammunition was used, the success rate dropped to less than 40%.”
Anyone accused of using a firearm in the commission will be required to leave brass casings at the location. Failure do do so will result in a BIG PROBLEMO.
A couple hundred rounds of wore out spent brass would keep LE busy for quite awhile.
Hey! Are you gonna give away the secret handshake too?!?
Don't forget: bury any information unfavorable to your preconceived opinion. Like New York dropping its CoBIS ballistic fingerprinting program after spending $44 million over a decade, without a single crime being solved.
Liberals love resurrecting failure.
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