New technique lifts fingerprints off cleaned guns

Gozmag ^ | June 23rd

[hosepipe]

Is that anything like finding evidence where none exists?..
Who could disprove it?.. Sounds and smells fishy to me..
But then DNA evidence could be just as faulty..

[TigersEye]

A multi-million dollar program that won’t make a dime’s worth of difference.

[Shooter 2.5]

Good. It removes the need for microstamping each cartridge which would have bankrupted the ammunition companies.

[wastedyears]

A revolver completely invalidates it.

[Clint Williams]

Only works well if everyone's fingerprints are in the database. Foreign visitors/immigrants & arrested citizens (I think) are there. More will come when the US persuades foreign governments to collect the same biometrics on US people traveling abroad that the US collects on foreigners entering.

But hey... If you've done nothing wrong (here) you have nothing to worry about, right? Big Brother is here to PROTECT you.

Go for it.

[MaxMax]

I always wear rubber gloves before and while shooting at people.

That was you? Stop shooting at me!

[fish hawk]

I'm sorry. IF I would have known you were a FReeper I would have bought you a beer instead.

[Turbopilot]

Great, so after the range I use sells the spent brass to the company that reloads the ammo they sell, and it gets sold to a thug, I get a visit by the police, and I have no way to prove I didn’t touch the case that the cops picked up from a murder scene.

I’m all in favor of using new technology to find legal evidence against criminals. But this particular technology seems ripe for abuse. I hope that any prosecutors who try to use this technology as evidence are made aware that many hands could touch any given case before it’s used in a crime.

[Turbopilot]

Only works well if everyone's fingerprints are in the database. Foreign visitors/immigrants & arrested citizens (I think) are there.

Don't forget about anyone who's served in the military or anyone who has a carry permit (gee, when would those people have had an opportunity to touch a shell casing?). Not to mention anyone who's ever had a government job or had any of numerous professional certifications.

The government has lots of people's fingerprints, and lots of them have touched ammo that could at some point be used in a crime. But don't worry, they're from the government, and they're here to help.

[Still Thinking]

If every print from every finger that ever touched the gun is still there, and they use this process and get them all, it seems like it would be completely covered with overlapping prints so that no one would be incontrovertibly distinguishable. Now on a shell, only one or two people might ever touch it, so that might be a different story.