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"Ballistic Fingerprinting" -- The Maryland Example: Costing Taxpayers Without Benefiting Law Enforcement

In 2000 Maryland became the first state to require that new handguns must be "ballistically fingerprinted" before they could be sold in the state. Since then anti-gun activists have pushed such legislation in other states and at the federal level. They would have you believe they have discovered an effective new crime-fighting tool, but the truth is that way back in the 1960s their scheme was recognized and rejected for what it is--gun registration by another name. It deserves to be rejected once again.

Under the Maryland law, every newly-manufactured handgun is required to be fired and the distinctive markings left on the bullet and/or cartridge case recorded and entered into a database before the gun may be sold. The theory is that markings on a fired bullet or an empty cartridge case found at a crime scene could be compared to markings in the database, thus identifying the firearm used by the criminal--but not the criminal, who most likely stole the firearm in question, leaving no paper trail to follow.1

To date Maryland's law has proven to be an utter failure--it unfairly penalizes law-abiding gun owners and taxpayers, with no law enforcement value. With an average cost of $5,000 per shell casing, not a single crime has been solved. However, the number of laboratory personnel and administrators to run the program has risen, while the MSP has lost 12 troopers who would normally perform the critical job of ensuring public safety. By paying for IBIS out of community policing funds, the law is draining money from a program that monitors criminals and diverting it to a program that monitors law-abiding citizens.

Maryland's "Ballistic Fingerprinting" Scorecard

Purchase price of IBIS, the software system used to manage collected shell casings.................................$1,100,000

Deallocated funds from community policing projects used to pay for IBIS....................................$1,000,000

Average annual cost of extended warranty on IBIS....................................$150,000

Annual operating cost according to legislative analysis of Maryland State Police (MSP) budget..................$750,000

Officer personnel lines MSP will give up to attrition this year...................................12 troopers

Number of new handguns lawfully transferred under the new law (10/1/2000-3/13/2001)............................400

Number of new handguns that would typically have been sold between 10/1/2000 and 3/13/2001................17,500

Number of crimes solved using shell casings available under the mandate..................ZERO

Faced with these the cold facts, the law's anti-gun proponents have declared victory. Why? Because only 2.2% of the hand guns normally sold in Maryland during this period have been sold. As a key sponsor of the law even told the Washington Post, "We have inadvertently created an unintended consequence of a de facto ban on some weapons from some manufacturers."

Besides the utter failure of "ballistic fingerprinting" in Maryland, there are other important reasons to vigorously oppose such legislation at the state and federal levels. Among other things, "Ballistic Fingerprinting" schemes would:

Require registration of law-abiding gun owners only. The system would apply only to newly-manufactured firearms, but anti-gun activists would soon demand that the "loopholes" in the system be closed and that all of the more than 200 million privately owned firearms in America be surrendered to authorities for "fingerprinting." This would, of course, require registration, but only of honest citizens. Felons would be constitutionally exempt from any registration requirement.2
Be irrelevant to nearly all violent crime. Proponents ignore the fact that three out of four violent crimes, don't involve firearms. They also ignore the fact that less than 1% of the firearms in America are used in crimes.3
Be circumvented easily by criminals. Nothing would prevent a criminal from altering the relevant parts of a firearm before using it in a crime, thereby rendering useless any bullet/cartridge case comparisons.
Ignore the fact that, unlike real fingerprints, "ballistic fingerprints" can change. When a firearm wears through use and/or lack of maintenance, the markings on the bullets and/or cases it fires change.
Ignore the fact that most often no "fingerprints" are left behind. In 87% of handgun-related violent crimes, the gun is not fired, only brandished.4 Furthermore, many firearm designs, i.e. revolvers, do not eject fired cases, and shotguns, of course do not fire bullets.
Provide little bang for a lot of bucks. The tax dollars required to create the bureaucracy necessary to administer such systems would be much more efficiently spent on more traditional law enforcement activities, such as hiring and retaining additional police officers and prosecutors and providing police departments with much-needed equipment.
SUMMARY: "Ballistic fingerprinting" is yet another costly diversion from the real problem--the lack of prosecutions of armed, violent offenders. State and federal lawmakers should be focusing tax dollars on real solutions, not unworkable government bureaucracies.

1. A study by BATF found that more than 70% of armed career criminals get their guns from "off-the-street sales" and "criminal acts" such as burglaries. ("Protecting America," 3/92). A study for the Department of Justice found that up to 71% of criminals' guns have been stolen. (Armed and Considered Dangerous, 1986)

2. In Haynes v. U.S. (390 U.S. 85, 1968), a convicted felon successfully appealed his conviction for unlawful possession of an unregistered short-barreled shotgun, citing the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled: "We hold that a proper claim of constitutional privilege against self-incrimination provides a full defense to prosecutions either for failure to register a firearm under sec.5841 or for possession of an unregistered firearm under sec.5851."

3. Crime in the United States 1998. The FBI estimates firearms were used in 382,761 violent crimes that year. Even if a different gun was used in each crime, the total would amount to less than two-tenths of 1% of the nation's estimated 230-240 million guns. (Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, Aldine de Gruyter, New York, 1997, pp. 96-97)

4. Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Handgun Crime Victims," July 1990.

"The FOP does not support any federal requirement to register privately owned firearms with the federal government," the document stated. "Without federally-mandated registration of the more than 200 million firearms in the U.S. today, such a database would be no more effective than the current NIBIN [National Integrated Ballistic Information Network] maintained by ATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms]."

The NIBIN system is restricted to comparisons of ballistics data associated with bullets, shell casings, and weapons used in the commission of a crime. The "FOP Viewpoint" report noted that - when authorities recover a recently fired bullet from a crime victim or scene, and later obtain the weapon - imaging technology can be used to confirm the link between the two pieces of evidence.

"This has proved to very effective to investigators, enabling them to link multiple shootings in which the same firearm was used (such as the recent murders in the Washington area)," the FOP wrote, "and to definitively connect recovered firearms to a particular shooting and/or crime."

But the report also noted the limitations of such a system.

"In all cases, it is necessary that investigators recover a bullet or shell casing from the crime scene which is intact enough to allow forensic analysis to be able to identify the ballistic markings," the group stated. "The firearm must then be recovered in order for the gun and the bullet or shell casing to be conclusively linked."

The document explained that a "chain of evidence" must be established and maintained in order for ballistic imaging data to be useful to law enforcement.

"An intact bullet or shell case needs to be recovered from the crime scene, then linked to a gun and then the gun linked to a shooter," the FOP concluded. "Ballistics imaging and comparison technology is very limited in accomplishing the latter."

The FOP even challenged the use of the terminology "ballistic fingerprinting" to refer to the investigative technique.

"Since ballistic imprints, unlike fingerprints and DNA, can be altered, either deliberately or simply through normal use," the group asked, "how will we ensure the validity of the findings?"

Kevin Watson is legislative director for the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA), a membership group of law enforcement officers and private citizens supportive of police. He told CNSNews.com that legislators have to look past the latest "buzz word" from gun control advocates to find what really helps get criminals off the streets.

"A lot of the people who push ideas like this say that, 'Well, even if it just catches one crook it can't hurt,'" he noted. "But if it costs $3 trillion and only catches one crook it sure does hurt, because that's money that could be spent elsewhere on things that we know do work."

The FOP report agreed.

"These are law enforcement dollars best spent elsewhere," the report stated.

Both groups support research into the concept, as long as it does not deplete needed resources, and is driven by a law enforcement, not gun control agenda. But significant research into the idea has already been completed.

Watson noted that, in a year-old study by the California Department of Justice's Bureau of Forensic Services, significant problems were discovered with the concept of linking guns used by criminals to bullets or shell casings that passed through those weapons when they were new.

After firing a variety of ammunition through known test guns, the so-called "ballistic fingerprinting" system incorrectly matched bullets to guns other than the one from which they were fired as often as 62.5 percent of the time. The system also matched shell casings to guns other than the one from which they were ejected as often as 77.8 percent of the time.

Those inaccuracies haven't deterred gun control advocates from supporting the idea, Watson said, because they see it as another opportunity to register firearms owned by law abiding citizens.

"It's perfect for the gun control folks," he asserted. "It's an idea that sounds wonderful, that - without any education - looks like a neat idea, and the NRA is opposed to it, so it allows them to demonize gun owners over another false issue."

Ballistic fingerprinting is the new magic crime-solving tool, and after the sniper at tacks in the Washington area, there is an understandable desire to do something. According to the Brady Campaign, recording the markings on bullets from all new guns "would have solved this crime (the sniper shootings) after the first shooting." Today the Assembly is voting on requiring such a system for New Jersey.

Unfortunately, by draining resources from other police activities and making it costly for law-abiding citizens to own guns, ballistic fingerprinting will more likely increase crime. Despite frequent comparisons, ballistic fingerprints are not at all like human fingerprints or DNA. Recording a child's fingerprints or DNA still allows for identification much later in life. Friction in gun barrels causes wear and changes the markings over time.

A better analogy is the tread on car tires. It is possible to take the tire tracks left at the crime scene and match them with the criminal's car. But tires wear over time. If six months go by, the original print marks may not be of much use.

Nor does it make much sense to put together a registry of tire treads on new tires on the off chance that a tire mark will be left at a crime scene. Brand-new tires are essentially identical, leaving investigators with limited information on only the brand and model.

The very friction that creates markings on bullets also creates wear. Except for the cheapest guns, the same models of brand- new guns produce the same markings on bullets. And markings change slightly each time a gun is fired. For inexpensive guns with softer metal barrels, 50 or 100 rounds can make it very difficult to match bullets. Ballistic fingerprinting faces other difficulties. The process is defeated by replacing the gun's barrel. Scratching part of the inside of a barrel with a nail file would alter the bullet's path down the barrel and thus change the markings.

Even if a crime gun was not used much between when the ballistic fingerprint was originally recorded and the crime occurred, police must still be able to trace the gun from the original owner to the criminal. Yet only 12.1 percent of guns used in crimes are obtained by the criminals through retail stores or pawn shops.

The sniper attacks in Washington are a good example of where the system works. The bullets were matched fairly quickly to the weapon. In this case, the attacker wanted police to know that the same person was committing the crimes. But doing what happened in that case is not the same thing as setting up a database on new sales and making matches after guns have been used a lot.

So far, only Maryland and New York have started recording the ballistic fingerprints of all new handguns sold. While Maryland's program technically started in January 2001, the cost of implementing the program made it unprofitable for gun makers to sell any handguns in the state for the first six months of the year. Only after the state temporarily agreed to pick up some of the costs did sales proceed. The program cost $1.1 million to start and another $750,000 a year to run. New York's program began in March 2001 with startup costs of $4.5 million. No estimates are available on the yearly cost for New York. The costs for dealers, gun makers and prospective gun owners are probably by far greater and were responsible for reducing handgun sales in both states.

So far, the database on new sales is not encouraging. Not one violent crime has been solved in New York or Maryland using the database. It has only been used to identify two handguns stolen from a gun shop in Maryland.

Gun control advocates cite a May Treasury Department study to prove ballistic fingerprinting works. But they confuse using the process to match guns soon after they are used with a database on all new guns. The advocates ignore the report's warnings that the two approaches are "significantly different."

Good intentions don't necessarily make good laws. What counts is whether the laws save lives. "Fingerprinting" all new guns will divert police resources from normal police work and make it costlier for law-abiding citizens to own guns. The result will be a more dangerous society.

Besides the impossibility of this sequence of events, there's serious debate within the law enforcement community whether such ballistic "fingerprinting" is reliable. Police criminalists and forensic scientists have studied such a system and called it "impractical." (California Department of Justice, Bureau of Forensic Services).

So it defies reason why a criminal or terrorist intent on violence would not avail himself of a firearm never subjected to "fingerprinting," altered into anonymity, or imported from another country.

But for lawful gun owners, this scheme is national gun registration, and certain to produce confusion, misidentification and wrongful suspicion.

That's why ballistic "fingerprinting" of handguns in Maryland and New York, the only states that require it, hasn't solved a single gun crime.

Maryland and New York taxpayers might rightfully ask whether the millions of dollars required to create and maintain such a system could be better spent on vital law enforcement needs.

Before squandering billions of dollars to deploy such a system nationwide, American taxpayers - despite national alarm in the wake of tragedy - should ask that question, too.

The NRA welcomes participation in an objective and unemotional evaluation of the entire concept of ballistic imaging, or any other technologies, in search of any reasonable contribution to the process of law enforcement. October 17, 2002