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Building a Comprehensive Ballistics Database?
Linuxathome asks: "I'm a resident in the Washington DC-Baltimore Metropolitan area. If you've kept up with the news lately, you've probably have heard about the serial killings. I realize that this question may spark a political debate, but my question pertains to current technology. The gun law debate has been recently re-ignited. And the hot topic of current is in regards to fingerprinting firearms. Gun rights supporters argue that the technology behind fingerprinting is not reliable (see John Dingell). Dingell estimates there are approximately 50 million gun owners in the US (I don't have estimates of how many guns are out there). Is an image database of 50 million spent casings not feasible?" What issues, both technical and political, would there be surrounding the creation (and the current hold up) of such a database?
Regardless of reliability of the method (the main issue is you simply replace the barrel and/or firing pin and you have a different print) the fact remains that criminals will simply need to get unregistered or stolen firearms to circumvent the system. So what is the point in spending millions if not billions to register all the guns if it will only help in a very small percentage of the cases?
Barrel markings change over the life of the gun, so how feasible is it with respect to that aspect? I don't think it is at all.
Phil
One issue with a ballistics database is that the characteristics of a gun barrel change with every shot. After a couple hundred shots it might have changed enough to make enough of a difference for the computer to fail to make a match.
I imagine it'd be possible to change the barrel's fingerprint by scouring the inside of the barrel (say with steel wool). The barrel could also be swapped out completely...
Fingerprinting the bullets won't work, even considering the noraml wear of the barrel, because with a small amount of work you can completely change the way the barrel makes marks on the bullet.
Fingerprinting the marks on the brass cartridges is even worse; not only can that be changed, but if you shoot your gun at a public range, anyone could grab a case you've left behind and frame you with it, taking attention away from themselves.
I think it's New Jersey that's instituted a program for fingerprinting the cartridge cases; they've spent a godawful amount of money on the program, and the end result has been no useful information towards making arrests.
Such a plan will never do any good.
Posters have already pointed out the "stolen gun" hole - add to that legitimately re-sold guns, and you've got a nightmare of bad data!
This will only result in the innocent being hassled, and having to prove their innocense, and the guilty running free for even longer. It will also increase the amount of criminal activity in behind-the-scense gun trading.
Technically however, there are few issues in such a database... It will require a good load of hardware (I'd guess if there's 50 million gun owners, there's probably around 200 million guns) - multiply that by owner information and a few hundred KB image, and the data set is huge!
Seems the greatest technical hurdles would be keeping the data "fresh" and making software smart enough to compare the images.
If you embedded an RF tag into each registered gun, and then imaged a fired casing, connecting both in a database with the gun buyer (not necessarily owner), I think we could get past the gun-rights issue.
We have the same problem on the net. You cannot prevent people from committing the crime, you just need to make it so there is no doubt as to the origin of the crime tools. Traceability goes a long way toward preventing crime. Traceability would prevent college-based gun buyers.
Of course, if you re-bore your barrel, that might sidestep the issue. How difficult is that maneuver and does it ruin the usefullness/acuracy of the gun?
Who pays for something like this?
Does a place like Nebraska or Iowa or any other agriculturely centered state have the capability of setting this up?
What of all the guns that are already purchased?
Are you going to charge for it, wrt existing legally owned guns?
Who does this? ATF or FBI?
What is the timeline?
Where do the guns go to be tested?
Are they to be re-tested as they barrels age?
Not to mention the fact that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to create and load his/her own ammo. So unless a criminal is dumb enough to want to get caught this won't help.
If your are going to require current gun owners to register their casings, then that will require that the gun be fired. There are many collectors who have prized mint-condition firearms, never been fired. These can be worth multiple thousands of dollars. As soon as you fire the first round, it will drop the value significantly. Also, what do you do about guns that are in a collection but aren't in working order?
MD and NY already have ballistics DBs. How they are set up I have no idea. I do know that one legal issue is that only artifacts recovered at crime scenes are kept in that database, not everyone who owns a gun in those states.
Rob Andrews of NJ has proposed a national database of all manufactured guns. It's come up before, and NRA lobbyists have always been successful in knocking it down.
Two issues already brought up by other posters: Yes, criminals will still get guns illegally. Such a system obviously won't protect against that, but it'll root out who's selling guns illegally. And yes, ballistics change over time the more a gun gets used. Modern guns, however, take thousands of rounds before a difference is noticeable, making this argument negligible.
As for technical issues, this looks like a problem similar to the DoJ's Fingerprint database. Basically, this DB, when given a print to search for, returns several possible matches, as perfect matching isn't possible. An investigator then takes those matches and performs a hand check of each to determine if the print he has has been seen before. This means the DoJ's agencies have to keep prints on hard-copy records in filing cabinets.
The major difference is that the DoJ DB doesnt contain every individual's fingerprint, while the proposed ballistics DB would contain the fingerprint of every manufactured gun made after the system goes live. If ballistics are non-deterministic like the DoJ fingerprints, then that means every used round would have to be physically kept somewhere, and it would quickly add up to a lot of space.
Best thing to do is to find out how MD and NY have their systems working.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Everyone so far has pointed out that the characteristics of a gun barrel change over time. This is true, and it would mean that eventually the markings might change enough to make a "fingerprint" useless.
However, you can readily buy replacement barrels for most rifles anyway. So you could handily buy a weapon and register it, and then swap out the barrel, use the weapon in a crime, and then change it back. Obviously this would take planning and a minor amount of skill (it's really not hard to take apart assault rifles -- remember, they are designed to be taken apart and cleaned in the field by unsophisticated soldiers). The D.C. killer is obviously skilled enough to accomplish this.
Bullet fingerprinting is still an idea that does have its merits, but don't let anyone fool you that such laws would be in any way helpful in catching the current D.C. area serial killer.
I'd imagine the cost to fingerprint these barrels and bullets would be the primary deterrent in creating the database, not the database itself. The main method for tracking weapons is through serial numbers, I don't beleive fingerprints are taken by anyone before the customer is given the rifle. Anyone know the cost associated with "fingerprinting" your weapon?
Bill, can you factor this prime number for me?
This doesn't address the issue that its fairly easy to build a firearm either. Take Bill Holmes line of books. With a lathe and a milling machine you can produce a firearm in as little as a day or two.
Once again this is a knee-jerk reaction. This person or persons has commited a crime, and when caught will be punished for it. Thinking that any law would have prevented this is illogical and flat out wrong. You can make anything a crime but that doesn't mean its going to stop anyone from doing it. What it does is create a police state where everyone is a criminal and as such can be controlled.
Of course, if you re-bore your barrel, that might sidestep the issue. How difficult is that maneuver and does it ruin the usefulness/accuracy of the gun?
Any half wit backwoods gunsmith can rebore a barrel and still have a reasonably accurate gun. The issue is we aren't dealing with high end equipment, guns have been around for hundreds upon hud reds of years and the tech to build and maintain them is relatively low. So anything that relies on a physical aspect of the firearm can be modified, and hence the system circumvented, by ANYONE with a small machine shop (ie tools in their garage).
In order to get a conviction you must make the following links:
1) bullet to gun
2) gun to perpatrator
The hard part is #2. The gun's rightful owner is generally not the perp. (You know that, right?). Even if you could comprehensively backpopulate all 50 million existing guns to their fingerprint, you would acheive nothing.
For example, after the first shooting we have the fingerprint of this gun. We know that the following shootings were done by the same gun. We do not have an arrest. WHY? Because it is step 2 that is hard.
Of course, attempts to make a database of existing guns will fail utterly. I think the 30 million NRA members will probably interpret your request for a bullet sample a little differently that you.
There was an article in the local fishwrap yesterday that said the database would be for new firearms only.
If that's the case, it's pointless because of the 200 million or so guns already privately owned that won't be included in the database.
It's just a big waste of money.
it's easier to just overly clean barrel with a wire brush.
of course, you could artificially mark each bullet before firing also.
The police kept a fingerprint database. However, imagine that after time, your fingerprint changes and wears down over time, and it's even possible to change it entirely. This is the main problem with a law requiring ballistic fingerprinting. It's not reliable. As more and more bullets are fired, the fingerprint of the gun barrel actually changes. Not to mention, if one wanted, you could either scratch the inside of the barrel to completely change it, or you could simply replace the barrel entirely, with one that's undocumented. And even worse, this would only inconvenience those who intend on following the law. Noone going on a murderous rampage is going to listen to laws saying he's got to register a gun, or submit it for ballistic fingerprinting. Once again, those who want weapons for legitimate reasons get hassled because of those who don't.
No comment.
As stated in other responses, the main problem is that the fingerprint is likely to change over the course of the gun's life. Even supposing someone can come up with a better model for fingerprinting that can account for this, the next problem is that if fingerprinting were made to work, criminals would get their barrels custom made by a freind who's a gunsmith. They wouldn't be in the database.
11*43+456^2
It's my understanding that the markings left on both the shell casing and the spent round are more like DNA matching (ie: I'm 99% sure it's this person, I'm 100% sure it's NOT the other person) and less like fingerprints (I'm 100% sure, both ways)
Additionally, did anyone notice something odd about the latest killing? The police said that they linked the killing at the home depot to the other string using ballistic evidence, but they said the killer may have used a different rifle? Maybe the media is oversimplifying here, but how can you link a killing to a string of other killings ballistically if it's a different gun?
Heh, oops! I meant to say more like DNA, not DNS. Not trying to make this an internet conversation!
But seriously, to get this back to a technical conversation about the database technology, instead of storing images, perhaps they should take the "fingerprint" of the bullet, digitize it, and store the distinguishing characteristics as a series of numbers or in some binary format, rather than storing like, a jpg of the casing.
"Hey, I can't tell if this is a powder burn, and rifling marking, or a jpg compression artifact!"
There is some good in this, as in all databases that are intended to help track/solve criminal cases. As there are records that police and investigators can search to give them a list of all known criminals with an MO (Modus Operendi) of X. They can narrow down the investigation by searching and finding out who is still in jail, who is dead and who has moved elsewhere (doesn't mean they are guilty/innocent, just not a good suspect). A database of all spent cartridges would go along these lines of helping narrow the search. While the barrels may deteriorate over time and use, the rifling patterns of X groves with Y twists will remain the same -- changing the barrel of a 9mm Glock with another barrel will still get you the same X and Ys, just more defined in a new barrel.
.40 cal conversion kit and use it to commit the crime. Reinstall the original 9mm kit and ditch the .40 cal kit. As the kit is not a working firearm, there is not a legal requirement to keep a record of the individual purchasing the kit. Pay cash and there is a dead in trail. When the police come because you are a close match to the person on the video or eyewitness description, you can safely produce you legally owned 9mm and they get a dead end.
Where does the Bad come in? Well, from personal experience, I bought a used hand gun from A&P arms in Virgina years ago. Recently, I had a phone call from a Virginia Beach police officer investigating a robbery and looking for a gun -- the federal registry said that I had the gun (they only had a partial serial, but insisted I was the only gun) and I had not lived in Virgina for over 5 years. Luckily, I was able to provide him the name of the dealer I sold the gun to. Also, luckily, he was a polite individual and knew that the system was giving him information that could not be true, but he had to follow the lead as my serial number was a partial match. If this system is implemented, then it should be used to check used weapons when they are sold/changed ownership. There are many ads in trade papers for weapons, and I would not be against a requirement that a ballistics check be made before I purchased it. This is akin to a background check on potential buyers of guns, and since all a criminal has to do, is pick up the local classifeds/trade magazine -- there is no US law that states that an individual has to perform a background check on someone prior to selling them a personal weapon.
The Ugly? Well, if you check out many guns, they now come with multiple caliber barrels for the same frame. Buy a 9mm over the counter, register it, and have it entered into the ballistic database. Go to a gun show, purchase a
Where this database will come in handy, is all the firearms in police impound. There are numerous weapons that never make it to melt down, and those criminals (and maybe the officer) that has it may not consider changing the identifying items..barrel and firing pin.
Criminals will always have the means to obtain a gun, and as long as I have the right to carry mine, I'm not worried.
The best defense against a tyrranical governement, is a well armed populace.
Sig? What's a Sig?
There is also the issue of frangible ammo (such as Sinterfire), which you will be seeing ALOT more of in the future. This type of ammo turns to dust on impact, and as such there is not ballistic fingerprint on the bullet because there is no bullet. The beauty of this type of ammo is that there is no back splatter, ricochet or over penetration worries. Also the bullet delivers nearly 100% of its energy into the target making the shot that much more effective at "stopping the action" which is what most police agencies are trained to do. There is also no lead, which is a big worry for shooting ranges now a days.
Gun laws like requiring fingerprinting don't work. The reason is simple. People who are planning on committing a crime with their gun are going to obtain their gun illegally to avoid the fingerprinting law.
You cant make laws that require criminals to identify themselves and expect them to work. Criminals don't obey the laws. That's why they are criminals.
Unlike fingerprinting a person, taking a "fingerprint" of a shell casing is very dependent on the exact setup of the light source. Small variations can just about eliminate the chance of making a match. In fact, there is more than 1 company competing to convince the government to use their fingerprinting system and guess what? Images from 1 system cannot be matched against images from another system. So right away you have a currently unsolved practical problem which the proponents of fingerprinting wish to ignore.
As to the poster who asked how a ballistics match could be made if the shooter used a different gun, I would guess that they would be talking about the bullet, casing, and powder residue suggesting that the round came from the same batch as the others. While not as conclusive as casing or bullet markings, it's not likely that 2 independent murders would involve the same batch of ammunition.
The primary factor that making Human Fiungerprinting such an effective tool is that they grow back. Mar a fingerprint, and a few days later, it will return. Cover it in superglue, and a few days later it will return.
The only want to permanently mar a fingerprint is to cut the finger off, and even then, you still have a distinctive palm print that can be used to identify you.
Gun fingerprints can permanently marred, and never grow back, as others have suggested. It is even possible to change the "fingerprint" of a gun and (mostly) restore it, if you happen to have spare parts available. This operation takes a few minutes, and is permanent.
So, although you might catch the lazy criminals with this technique, a guy like you have in Washington would not be caught using the fingerprint.
And it would cost a lot of money to implement.
Chivalry is not dead, it's just frequently misspelt. - M. Langley
At the risk of causing someone to invoke Godwin's law, there is a very real historical example of the kind of "safety" that gun registration gets you. There is a great article at the JPFO's website that is better than any explanation I could give.
-Peter
Technical issues could be solved fairly easily, I think. Make it convenient by requiring a testfire of each weapon prior to sale, at the factory, into the nearest dork at the gunshow, whatever, as long as you recover the slug and send it in.
My proposal for solving the political issues is to require all access to the database to be done through an elected citizens review board comprised not only of law enforcement officials, but also comprised of gun owners, NRA members, whatever, who will have the responsibility to ensure that government invasions of privacy, etc. do not get out of hand.
One of the biggest problems with gun ownership is the same as the biggest problem with parenting. The qualifications to become either one are far, far below what they should be considering the corresponding great responsibility.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Shotguns and muskets? The weapon of choice for knocking off banks and the like was always a sawn off.
I would suggest most people go and watch "Bowling for Columbine" It gives a very clear picture of the question. It's not guns it's people it's always dumb schmucks like you and me.
America has a number of problems at the moment the least of which is guns. A corrupt administration, a corrupt legislature for starters. When Bush strolls into Iraq do not expect things to get any better.
As a side point has any gun legislature in the last 100 years made the citizens safer or has it made the politicians safer?
Bear hunting from iron ore, through muzzle loaders, through finding the bear and skinning it.
You basically need a stick with a hard metal cutting bit on the end. Not kidding, look at the book. THats how the rifiling is done in there.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Think about fingerprinting. There is a standard way to analyaze a fingerprint in order to find it in a database. The FBI can look at one type a few comands into a computer system and return results. This is not the case in ballistics. If the cops find a bullet, they would have to literally look at every single record and compare them by placing one next to the other. Thats why this ballistic database would be useless in finding a criminal. It could only be used in situations where both the gun and ammo is found and a link needs to proven in court.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
And while we are it, for the noble cause of solving crime, why don't we fingerprint not only guns, but also fingers/hands of every person in the country. After all, criminals may leave fingerprints at crime scenes and that will allow us to easily identify and locate those criminals. And let's not forget about collecting the DNA information too. That would be wonderful for solving all those rapes and whatnot.
So, all you gun control nuts - see anything wrong with this picture?
Instead of speculating about whether a database could be implemented or would even work, why not read about the real thing? According to this report that was issued by the US Senate, there's already a ballistics database in use today. It's contents are currently limited to fingerprinting handguns that have been used to commit crimes, but I don't think that scaling would be a big issue.
This occurred in an episode of CSI once, or at least something similar.
While CSI is fiction, the trick made sense to me.
Some guy who owned a chain of grocery stores and happened to be a gun afficionado (Could pack his own cartridges with powder/a bullet) made the bullets out of meat instead of lead. So by the time the body was discovered, the ballistics evidence had melted.
The bullet won't be as strong/fly as well as a lead one, you say? Doesn't matter at close range - Even blanks pointed at the head can kill you when point-blank.
Making the bullet out of ice could probably be done too.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Of course, attempts to make a database of existing guns will fail utterly.
What everyone fails to realize is that a registry already exists for gun serial numbers. Yes some criminals go to great lengths to file off the serial number, but they are still used to help solve crimes - and possessing a gun with a filed off serial number was itself made a crime in many juridictioins - the same could be done for altering the gun barrel.
Also, consider that fingerprints of criminals has been a forensic tool for over a century now, yet most criminals don't think to put on gloves or wear masks over their faces when they commit crimes. I think the ability of criminals to alter barrels is therefore a smokescreen since the criminals rarely fail to take other trivial steps to conceal their identities.
Unfortunately, the current serial number only database is only useable in those situations where a gun is discarded and not in cases like the current DC sniper. But because of serial numbers there is already a national registry and the NRA need not get its panties in a bunch about creating a new way to infringe on their second amendment rights. Ballistic fingerprints could easily be added to the existing serial number registry - at least for new guns and any gun that is legally resold.
I assume that law abiding gun owners aren't filing the serial numbers off their guns (which as I noted is itself crime in many places), and that if a gun is stolen any responsible gun owner (which the NRA claims is the vast majority of them) is going to immediately report the theft it to the police (since failure to report a crime is itself a crime).
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Then we just ban barrel shaped objects...
If anyone ask me to fire my Civil War-circa U.S. Grand Army Republic Colt revolver, they'll face several problems:
1. I don't have any bullet for this antique anymore
2. The revolver barrel just MIGHT explode this time (and reduce the value by $12000)
3. They gotta pry it from my cold dead hand!
Actually, I expect that states like Nebraska COULD. I mean, sure. There's lots of agriculture in Nebraska, but Omaha didn't get put on MSN's "Top Ten Little-Known Tech Havens" list last year for cow-raising.
Corn Fields and I.T. are not mutually exclusive. I should know - I live two blocks away from a corn field and I write code for a living.
-V
... "I read part of it all the way through." -- Movie Mogul Sam Goldwyn (and some slashdot readers)
Here we go again, whenever someone drops the last bit of sanity off it's head and goes for some killing you folks start flaming on the opportunity of regulating firearms or defending the constitutional right to be minutemen ready to save your homeland... right. Us europeans have extremely stiff regulations and practically nobody except professionals (security personnel etc...) and sport-hunters are allowed to carry one (and in these cases under very restrictive conditions). Occasionally some tragedy strikes here too but the frequency is orders of magnitude lower. The fact is that if you only have your hands or a knife to offend, it's more difficult to make a kill compared to squeeze a trigger. Here, a saturday night gone bad mostly lands you in hospital... for you guys, odds favour the obituary ;-(
If someone wants me to imagine the pleasure of being beaten of knifed to death rather than wasting the aggressor with a phat s-auto I'll do; but please imagine just how cool it is to be shot dead for a car/watch/bad stare.
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
If you are trying to decide if the same gun was used in a number of similar crimes, such fuzziness is okay because the chances of having an accidental match are small. But if you start comparing against the entire population of guns in a particular caliber, you've got a problem.
No, the avowed purpose doesn't pass the smell test (except to cranks like Charles Schumer, who never saw a gun-confiscation law he didn't like). Instead, consider that this law wouldn't work without a comprehensive registry of guns and their owners. This would make it trivial to confiscate (a la NYC) everyone's guns, or just throw the protesters in jail for having failed to register their sale (or report their loss/theft to the appropriate authorities). Think it can't happen? It has already happened, in the USA, in several places.
No, there was no effect on crime. So-called "assault weapons" or "sniper guns" are used in a vanishingly small fraction of crimes. How many people died in traffic accidents in the Washington DC metro area during the last two weeks? How many people died in falls? As a public-health problem or a public-policy problem, this isn't worthy of any action; it is purely a police matter. That won't stop some demagogues from claiming that their law is EVEN BETTER THAN SNAKE OIL!, nor will it prevent a huge pile of idiots from voting for said pol on that basis. (When the voters start throwing out such pols for insulting their intelligence, we might have a sane and sensible government after a few elections. I give this about a snowball's chance in hell.)
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Good thing Congress listened to reason that time; the taggants would have really made it hell for black-powder shooters, not to mention the absurd expense of marking and tracking every batch of Pyrodex. I hope Congress is still able to listen to reason.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Something you might want to research is the historical rates of violence vs. the relative novelty of gun-control laws. ISTR that Britain's murder rate was an even smaller fraction of the USA's in the 19th century, and that was when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was writing about Sherlock Holmes carrying a pistol whenever it suited him (not just unregistered weapons, but legal unrestricted concealed carry!). Attributing the historical crime statistics in those states to their present-day gun-control laws puts the effect before the cause.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Hmm, a huge collection of images of gun barrels? I guess they'd have to call it a TerrorService...
Apologies to the families of the victims.
Exactly right.
Criminals are stupid. All the "pry my gun from my cold dead fingers" types here who are arguing "they could change the rifling, they could swap the barrel, they could build their own guns, they could smuggle a gun in from Brazil using a remotely-operated submersible, etc." are completely missing that point.
In all violent crime investigations, more forensic leads are better than fewer forensic leads, period, full stop. Fingerprinting guns in no way shape or form infringes on the rights or liberties of law-abiding gun owners.
Get over it, already.
The only argument against this proposal is that the false-positive rate would be so high that the program would show a negative social return on investment, and we don't know whether that's the case until the issue has been competently studied, which it hasn't, yet.
If you don't think there ever will be in the EU... you really ought to read some history before posting on public policy issues... start with 1939-1944.
Democracy seems like a secure, settled thing to you. The issue as to whether even the USA will remain a free country even with private access to firearms is decidedly open. As to whether any country can remain democratic forever without deadly force in the hands of its citizens, you don't know the answer and neither do I.
You EU citizens made the decision to trade security for freedom by placing a monopoly of firearms in the hands of your governments, in the hopes of getting safer streets.
Perhaps the risk/benefit tradeoff is worth it. in the EU. Perhaps the French, given free access to handguns, would exterminate each other to the last man, world, and child. Perhaps the Englishman, given access to firearms, would immediately make the Thames run red with blood. Perhaps the Italians could turn their tourists and each other into bullet-ridden corpses and only keeping them unarmed has prevented this.
On the other hand, the Swiss people are armed on a scale which would scare the hell out of even the average American if he knew about it. People keep their government-issued automatic weapons at home with ammunition, and they are encouraged to buy their own ammo so they can practice shooting on their own time and funds. (check the Swiss Embassy site for what they've got to say about it... I've seen several different versions of what the Swiss are and aren't armed with)
Switzerland is an awfully quiet, peaceful place and it isn't because they all killed each other with their assault weapons.
Studies have demonstrated that communities in the USA that have made it possible for citizens to carry handguns via freely issued permits are safer than the places with strict gun control laws.
I'm not going to tell a resident of the EU that you should immediately abandon your gun control laws. Though ... it would be an interesting experiment that I would very much like to see from a safe distance to allow concealed carry (handgun permits) in one EU nation. Where do you live?
Tech Public Policy stuff
It will be a database of 50 million guns for which the owners have no intent to commit any crimes. People who intend to commit crimes, will choose guns that aren't in the database.
It is not feasible to magically have the database contain up-to-date information about every gun that exists.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It never ceases to amaze me how often Americans reach for the Constitution like it's infallible...
I know it's been said many times, but the document was written 200 years ago. Yes, it was comprehensive, well thought out, and it is still very useful. But do not hang onto it like the southern baptists hang onto the bible! (we make fun of them for it, don't we?)
When are you all going to realize that probably 99% of people who own guns don't use them to hunt food with it? When was the last time you someone shoot a deer with a handgun, then dragged the carcass home to feed the family? Why on god's green earth would you ever need an AR-15?
I live in Alexandria, and work in Falls Church (the site of the last shooting)... and I have to tell you folks, I get slight anxiety attacks when I go gas up.
Back to the issue at hand: what is so wrong with requiring not only your gun's fingerprint, but your own when you buy a gun??? How does that invade your privacy? If somebody robs you, and leaves their fingerprints all over, would you not want them caught, even if it causes *you* a 2-second inconvenience? Why do you hate/distrust your own government so much?
I have no answers on this one, but sometimes these privacy/gun fanatics just go contrary to (admittedly, my) common sense.
"If you could only see what I've seen with your eyes..." - Roy Batty
Reconcile that with your contention that firearms are the problem.
If you follow history even at a trivial level, you will see that genocide only happens when the targeted population is unarmed. The most famous recent case being Hitler and the Jews. First he disarmed the population, then he started eliminating the undesirables.
8 9,00.html
See this for a decent summary:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,658
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
More to the point, the same events which led to the influx of ex-Soviet weapons into the rest of the world also led to a flood of people, including Russian Mafiosi. Poor people in general have higher crime rates than middle-class people (see the complaints of the French about e.g. Algerian immigrants bringing crime to the places where they settle). You've latched onto one factor as the cause, and the entire argument is fatally flawed.
Uh, yeah. Do you really think that if we get rid of the GUN violence everything will be peachy-keen? Stop assuming that violence with knives, clubs or fists is harmless to its victims. The rate of violent crime in Britain is very high, with a rate of "hot" burglaries which ISTR is higher than the USA's total burglary rate. People get attacked and sometimes killed in such crimes, and it is a moral outrage to demand that they be disarmed so that the criminals won't become "gun violence statistics".Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I'm smart enough to realize that the chances of dying from a shooter such as this are very small. If I lived in the DC area, I'd exercise more than regular caution until he's caught, but other than that I wouldn't do anything; other factors, including some which are much more within my control, determine the vast majority of my odds of dying in the next week. Once the shooter is out of commission (and he's going to get caught), the added risk goes back to zero. The only reason to make a big policy flap about it is political posturing, because policy cannot affect the problem. Heck, the shooter may have bought the gun from a thief, and all the ballistic fingerprinting in the world wouldn't make it any easier to find him. What then, will you say "Oops, the premise behind this law is a mistake and this will only add to our public expenditures without improving safety, so let's forget the idea"? C'mon, be honest here: would you, or wouldn't you?
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Some people argue, "If everyone carried a gun, then no one would dare shoot another person". They claim that it would solve violence and make people safer.
Using the same logic, if everyone had a knife no one would be stabbed. Ok, look in everyone's kitchen. I bet everyone has a potentially deadly knife of some type (basically anything sharp.) Now, how many people were stabbed in domestic disputes last year.
Look at your hands, look at your feet. Most people have two of each. Now, does that mean that since almost everyone has hands and feet that no one was strangled, kicked, or beaten to death or near it last year?
Everyone in War has a gun or some type of weapon, does that mean that no one will be killed? So think, if more people had guns, does that mean that there would be less problems?
No
The problems will occur with or without the guns, but the guns sure make it easier. Think if the Sniper had to get out of his car and kick each of his victims to death. I don't feel that he would be as sucessful.
Now back to topic, I feel that it would be possible to 'register' the balistics data on all guns. We currently require that all guns are registered (which obviously doesn't happen). But we could require everyone to register the data on their gun, with stiff penalties for being caught with an unregistered gun. And if someone's gun was 'stolen' and someone was shot with it, well if you didn't report your gun stolen (and the court could show that you knew it was stolen), then you should be in deep shit too. People seriously need to keep their weapons locked up with no access to other people's hands. Biometric locking systems or even smartcard systems are cheap enough now.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
Using a weapon is not difficult
I beg to differ. Using a weapon safely and efficiently takes knowledge AND practice. This is why soldiers spend weeks to months in the firing range before they can use assault rifles efficiently. And this is for assault rifles which are quite accurate in the 20-50m range. Pistols are much harder to use efficiently and quickly. Many people will probably not hit what they aimed for from 20m, but they WILL hit something...
Result is that a weapons-newbie is one of the most dangerous things around.
And I haven't talked about maintainence, general handling (even simple things like how you carry a weapon), safety rules, etc.
Every child can press a trigger, (almost) every idiot can learn to use a weapon safely and efficiently, but it takes a lot of time and practice. Without them, you're a menace to society.
Working for necessity's mother.
If the US can't stop drugs coming into the country -- what makes you think they can stop guns?
...and it's pretty much impossible to stop contraband of relative small size of any kind from coming in the US.
We live in a world of global markets. Billions of those big "rail/truck" cars come in on boats every year. Less than 1% of them can be checked. The check rate at land crossings is around 3% for semis, many trucking companies have "trusted pass" privledges. Add in private cars, boats, planes
So they build a database - get imported guns, or imported gun parts. Wala- not in database.
Of course, any database is meaningless for a gun that's been fired a thousand or so times, and even more meaningless for any gun that has it's barrel and firing pin changed out. Even simple tools (wire brush) can alter the signature enough to make them unusable. Add in that gun parts can often be interchanged, and that guns frequently get 'rebuilt' for completely legit reasons.
Add in thefts and proxy buyers (who presumably would have to stage a theft under the proposed system) and you have another layer.
What's to stop people from switching to shotguns for their work instead? Other than a firing pin impression (easily changed) you aren't going to get any valuable data.
Not all guns leave casings either (IE: revolvers, many shotguns, many long guns).
As sensational as the sniper case is, the reality is you are no more likely to be killed in Washing ton D.C. or Maryland, or NoVA this week than you were a month ago.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
The Supreme Court has upheld that felons do not need to register the guns that they have.
Why? By federal law, a felon is not allowed to own firearms. By registering their firearm, they are incriminating themselves. It violates their 5th Amendment!!!
The only people who are required to register are nonfelons. If the cops / ATF came to your door and demanded your gun, if you do not comply, you'd be a felon, and have to surrender your firearms.
Only then could you legally own an unregistered firearm!!!