Rowland, Blumenthal talk in favor
gun 'fingerprints'
Gregory B. Hladky, Capitol
Bureau Chief
HARTFORD — Republican
Gov. John G. Rowland and Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal both
spoke Friday in favor of Connecticut adopting a system of so-called
"ballistic fingerprinting" for firearms.
The gun-control proposal is
gaining national momentum in the wake of the sniper killings that terrorized
the Washington, D.C., area.
The concept involves keeping a spent bullet and shell casing from every
firearm sold to help law enforcement officials match and identify ballistic
evidence found at a crime scene.
"I think it might sound like a great idea," Rowland said.
"We've got to determine whether we should do that for rifles, handguns
and so forth and so on … I'd defer to the attorney general on that."
Blumenthal also spoke in favor of the ballistic fingerprinting concept.
"A system of ballistic fingerprinting certainly ought to be
studied," Blumenthal said.
"My feeling is that it is feasible, workable and desirable as a measure
of crime prevention," Blumenthal said.
The National Rifle Association, which has endorsed Rowland in his re-election
campaign, is against the ballistic fingerprinting concept that has so far been
adopted by Maryland and New York. NRA officials claim such as system could
easily be circumvented and "infringes on the rights of tens of millions
of law-abiding Americans."
State Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, who is co-chairman of the
legislature's Judiciary Committee, called the concept "definitely a good
idea," and said it has widespread support among law enforcement
officials.
But Lawlor added that, "Obviously, it would be better done on a national
level." He pointed out that Maryland is one of the few states that
already has ballistic fingerprinting, but that the sniper who killed 10 people
in recent weeks apparently brought his weapon in from another state.
"There's going to be a lot of new proposals coming about (after) the
tragedies that have occurred in the Washington (D.C.) area," said
Rowland.
"The questions become, what capabilities do we have to prevent that from
happening anywhere else (and) what detection capabilities do we have to help
law enforcement in case this were to ever happen again," Rowland said.
Rowland also said he would urge other governors to adopt Connecticut's ban on
assault weapons, which would have prohibited the sale of the weapon used in
the Washington, D.C., sniper killings.
"I think a lot of governors will want to know what other states are
doing… I would certainly recommend our (assault weapon ban)
legislation," Rowland said.
"I think it's working well."
Meanwhile, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Curry blasted Rowland for
recently receiving an "A" rating from the NRA. Curry said the NRA
has given his candidacy an "F" rating.
"I've never been so proud of receiving an 'F' from an organization,"
Curry said.
Gregory B. Hladky can be contacted at ghladky@nhregister.com
or at (860) 524-0719.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=5843428&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=31007&rfi=6
Now, 4 States Look to Start Tracing Shells
and Bullets
BOSTON, Oct. 23 — Following the sniper shootings in
the Washington area, four states are considering creating a ballistic
fingerprinting system that would enable law enforcement to trace bullets or
shell casings found at a crime scene to the manufacturer and buyer of the gun.
The states are California, Connecticut, Massachusetts
and New Jersey. Currently, only Maryland and New York have such databases, and
they were both put into place so recently that only a relatively small number
of guns have been recorded, limiting the system's usefulness.
At a news conference here today, Boston's police
commissioner, Paul Evans, said he strongly favored a bill in the Massachusetts
legislature that would create a ballistic fingerprinting system for all guns
sold in the state, including handguns and rifles. "We think it would be a
great law enforcement tool," Mr. Evans said.
To illustrate the point, Mr. Evans noted that last
July the Boston police seized a .22-caliber Ruger semiautomatic pistol that
tests showed had been used to shoot seven people in four cities.
The tests were done with technology introduced by the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in 1995, called the National
Integrated Ballistic Information Network, which allows law enforcement
officials to match bullets or shell casings found at a crime scene to the gun
that fired or ejected them. A match can be made because whenever a bullet is
fired or a shell casing ejected, markings unique to the gun that fired them
are imparted.
This same technology could be used, Mr. Evans said, to
go a step further and use the bullets or shell casings from a crime scene to
identify the gun before it is found and then trace it to the buyer.
A number of the shootings by the .22-caliber Ruger
semiautomatic could have been prevented, Mr. Evans said, if the police could
have quickly matched the bullets and shell casings to the gun and then to the
purchaser by using a database of electronic images.
In the same way, a national ballistic fingerprint
database might help law enforcement officials catch the Washington sniper.
The Massachusetts bill would enable such traces by
requiring that all gun makers shipping a firearm into the state for sale
accompany it with a test-fired bullet and shell casing. These would be sent to
the Massachusetts State Police, who would record them with an electronic image
and store the images in a computer.
Mr. Evans said he recognized that there would be
resistance from gun owners and gun rights' groups like the National Rifle
Association, which opposes a national ballistic fingerprint system as
tantamount to a national gun registry. But, Mr. Evans said, the Massachusetts
bill was designed to help the police go after guns used in crime, not
interfere with gun owners' rights.
Mr. Evans said he also recognized that creating a
database just of new guns sold in Massachusetts would be relatively small at
first. But, he said, "We have to start somewhere."
A similar bill is being introduced in the New Jersey
legislature by two Democratic Assembly members, Robert Smith of Turnersville
and Loretta Weinberg of Teaneck. In Connecticut, a bill to create a state
ballistic fingerprint system is being introduced by State Representative
Michael Lawlor, Democrat of East Haven.
In California, Jack Scott, a Democratic state senator
from Pasadena, said today that he would introduce a similar bill in January,
and he expects widespread support in a legislature that has passed some of the
strongest gun control laws in the nation.
Matthew Bennett, a spokesman for Americans for Gun
Safety, a gun-control group in Washington, said that if the California
Legislature passed a bill creating a ballistic fingerprinting system, "It
would have a gigantic effect," because the state is by far the largest
market for guns in the nation.
That would mean many more guns would be entered into a
database, making the likelihood of tracing a crime gun much greater, and it
would also "make the case more compelling for a national database,"
beyond the limited number of state databases, Mr. Bennett said.
Earlier this week, California's attorney general, Bill
Lockyer, said he supported creating a national database. "I believe that
the potential for solving crimes and saving lives through the use of an
effective national ballistics database is so significant that the federal
government should make it a top national priority," said Mr. Lockyer, a
Democrat.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/24/national/nationalspecial/24PRIN.html
How Reliable Is
Ballistic Fingerprinting?
The sniper spree in the Washington, D.C., area has
spawned calls for "ballistic fingerprinting" of firearms.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.,
announced he would introduce legislation for a national program. The Brady
Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence told The Washington Post that
ballistic fingerprinting would have "solved this crime after the first
shooting."
But an October 2001 report by
California state ballistics experts -- hushed up by the California
attorney general's office -- concludes that ballistic fingerprinting
isn't feasible right now.
Ballistic fingerprinting involves
sending a fired bullet and empty cartridge casing from a gun to a government
agency before that gun can be sold. The idea is to match -- preferably by
automated computer analysis -- pre-sale ballistics data with crime scene
data.
Maryland and New York already
require ballistic fingerprinting. So far it hasn't helped convict a single
criminal in Maryland despite "fingerprinting" 17,000 guns sold since
January 2000. New York hasn't had success either.
And there isn't likely to be success
any time soon, according to the study.
The report included the test firing
of more than 2,000 rounds from 790 pistols.
When cartridges from the same
manufacturer were test-fired and compared, computer matching failed 38 percent
of the time. With cartridges from different manufacturers, computer matching
failed 62 percent of the time.
"Automated computer matching
systems do not provide conclusive results" requiring that "potential
candidates be manually reviewed," said the experts.
But the experts estimated a
California database would grow by about 108,000 entries every year for
pistols alone. "This study indicates that this number of candidate cases
will be so large as to be impractical and will likely create logistic
complications so great that they cannot be effectively addressed," they
said.
The test-firing results only scratch
the surface of ballistic fingerprinting's problems.
The experts concluded it's unknown
whether cartridges fired after typical firearm break-in and wear can at all be
matched to the cartridge fired when the gun was new.
"Firearms that generate
markings on cartridge casings can change with use and can also be readily
altered by the users," said the experts. "They are not permanently
defined like fingerprints or DNA."
A file may be used to make scratch
marks in a barrel or a breech face, and various parts may be replaced to give
a firearm a completely new ballistic identity. Bullets may be treated to alter
the machining marks in a barrel.
Not all guns even generate markings
on cartridge casings.
Further, "fired cartridge
casings are much easier to correlate than fired bullets," noted the
experts. Because bullets are severely damaged on impact, they can only be
examined manually.
Moreover, Americans already own more
than 200 million guns; those won't be included in any ballistics database.
Hiding behind the sniper shootings
and calling for ballistic fingerprinting -- is the gun control lobby.
"The [sniper] shootings are a
perfect example of how valuable complete ballistic fingerprinting would
be," said a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
"Doesn't it make sense for us
to give law enforcement the tools they need in order to solve such
crimes?" asked Sarah Brady of the Brady Campaign.
Perhaps -- if ballistic
fingerprinting worked. What gun control advocates really want is the proven
result of ballistic fingerprinting -- reduced gun sales.
The Maryland law reduced 2001
handgun sales to their lowest level in 10 years. Handgun sales have continued
to drop in 2002, according to the Maryland State Police.
Gun control advocates are fogging
debate by claiming a July 2001 report from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms found computerized ballistic fingerprints currently available to
federal law enforcement officials produced 8,800 ballistics matches with
17,600 crime scenes during 2000-2001.
But the ATF report only involved
standard matching of crime scene evidence with post-crime ballistic testing.
This is quite different from comparing crime scene with pre-sale ballistics.
Shockingly, the California experts
were silenced by California's pro-gun control Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
One panel member said he was gagged by the AG's office, not only about the
study, but about the entire topic.
The AG's office acknowledged in an
interview it favored a ballistics fingerprinting system and denigrated its
study as "preliminary" pending a review by a lone European expert.
No explanation was offered for not having FBI, ATF or other U.S. ballistic
experts review the report.
The Bush administration has opposed
ballistics fingerprinting on a national level, but this week committed to more
study of the idea -- the same sensible recommendation made by the
California experts.
As it stands now, ballistic
fingerprinting only promotes the agenda of gun control activists, not the
agenda more in the public interest, that of law enforcement.
Steven Milloy is the publisher
of JunkScience.com
, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and the author of Junk
Science Judo: Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute,
2001).
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,66007,00.html
Could the Beltway
Sniper be Stopped by Gun Control?
Jeff Johnson, CNSNews.com
Friday, Oct. 11, 2002
Capitol Hill -- If the United States had a federal law
requiring so-called "ballistic fingerprinting" of every firearm in
the country, could police have already caught the murderer coming to be known
as the "Beltway sniper"?
That is the assertion in a message sent to supporters
of the group formerly known as Handgun Control, Inc.
"As police try to track down and stop this
killer, we do know this: sensible gun laws can help law enforcement solve
crimes as well as prevent gun violence," wrote Sarah Brady, chairwoman of
the Brady Campaign.
Brady noted that ballistic comparisons of the bullets
recovered from the victims' bodies had helped authorities link several of the
shootings.
"[But] we have also seen the limitations to
ballistic fingerprinting laws in their current form," she continued,
complaining that the laws are only in force in two states, only cover newly
purchased weapons, and only apply to handguns.
"These limitations speak to a need for a national
ballistics fingerprinting law for all firearms," Brady argued.
She also used the letter to begin lobbying for a
continuation of the federal ban on certain types of military-looking firearms,
commonly referred to by opponents of their ownership as "assault
weapons," and to solicit funds for her organization.
Americans for Gun Safety (AGS), a group founded by
former Handgun Control, Inc. board member Andrew McKelvey, also supports
universal ballistic fingerprinting. Matt Bennett, spokesman for the group,
said the idea behind the process is similar to that of fingerprinting.
"A particular set of markings [on a bullet] can
be matched to all the other [ballistic records] in the system and the top five
or six matches come up and then a human expert will look at them and determine
if there's a real match," he explained.
AGS argues that the system is accurate even if someone
intentionally tries to alter a weapon, or subjects it to heavy use.
"It can degrade slightly, but it is still
recognizable," Bennett claimed. "The metaphor we're using is it's
like having a scratch on a record. It does degrade the quality of the sound,
but it's still a recognizable sound."
Kevin Watson, legislative director for the Law
Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA) - a coalition of current and former law
enforcement officers and citizen supporters - disagrees.
"It sounds really neat when you hear just the
basic description of it, but when you go into the description of how it would
actually work," he said, "it kind of falls apart."
Watson said the "ballistic fingerprint" of a
weapon will change over time, and can be altered intentionally.
"In a lot of firearms, you can replace the
equipment that leaves these marks," he said, "and, as the firearm is
used on occasion, that degrades the marks that are left and sometimes can
change them."
Watson described the lack of a basis for comparing
ballistic markings to human fingerprints.
"Imagine a fingerprint database where people can
switch their fingerprints and their own fingerprints wear down over time after
use," he added. "It makes it not that useful of a system."
Attorney Lisa Steele, who specializes in appellate
criminal defense cases, agreed. She said it would be relatively easy for a
ballistics examiner to make a mistake.
"A recovered bullet has been through a lot. It's
gone down a gun barrel, it's been fired into something. It's chipped. It's
damaged. It's fragmented," Steele explained.
Interpreting the Markings
She said examiners are trained to expect some of the
marking on two bullets fired from the same weapon not to match. They are also
told, Steele said, to expect many markings to match on two bullets fired from
two different weapons of the same caliber and model.
"They're trained to do this. They observe this in
the lab," she said. "What the training standards say is, eventually
you develop a 'gut instinct' for which of these striation matches are
important and which of them aren't."
Steele calls the phenomenon of seeing matches that
don't really exist "suggestion bias," explaining that the examiners
are not intentionally giving false reports, they simply "expect to
confirm what they already believe."
Investigators can also bias ballistics examiners, she
claimed, by sharing too much information about a case or the evidence being
examined.
"You know some things won't match. You know some
things will. You have to make a 'gut,' instinctive decision, and in the back
of your head, somebody has given you information that it's supposed to
match," Steele said. "Odds are, you're going to say it does
match."
The biggest part of the problem, she added, is that
unlike classifying human fingerprints, there is no objective reference
standard for ballistic "signatures.
Images of human fingerprints can be laid one on top of
the other and the number of points of similarity can be counted, Steele
explained. In most jurisdictions, criminal judges have established the minimum
number of points of similarity that they will accept to validate a fingerprint
match.
"There's no such objective measure for ballistic
fingerprints," she said.
Watson said another failing of ballistic fingerprints
opponents of armed self-defense often ignore is the sheer number of firearms
already in private hands in the United States.
"If you were just to do new firearms, that
basically means that there would be 200 million firearms that would not be
traceable in this system," he explained. "Any criminal would know or
would learn that if they wanted to make sure their gun was not traceable in
the new system, they would simple make sure they were using a gun that was
made before the enactment of the system."
Watson speculated that law-abiding gun owners might
not be willing to bring their weapons in for ballistic fingerprinting because
of the de facto registration of gun owners such a system would create.
He also disputed Brady's claim that the so-called
"assault weapons" ban - which actually banned military-looking
semi-automatic firearms, not fully-automatic assault weapons - could have had
any effect on the sniper's armament.
"They could be using a gun that they could
lawfully purchase today in Maryland, even if the 'assault weapons' ban is in
place or renewed," Watson argued. "The notion that, if we renew this
ban then we'll somehow pretend to keep certain guns off the street is really
kind of nonsense."
Brady's attempt to capitalize on the murders to
promote her anti-Second Amendment agenda is "quite honestly
shameless," Watson said, especially while police are still looking for
the sniper.
"This is a group that, every time tragedy
happens, they jump out and say 'We need these [gun control laws] we need
these," he alleged. "It's not really all that surprising to see it
happen, but it's still shameless."
The premise that a gun control law could somehow
affect the behavior of a murderer is puzzling to Watson.
"It's just a nonsense comment to say that
somebody is going to break the law about murder, but obey the law about which
tools they can use," he said. "It's pretty obvious that people who
are not influenced by laws banning murder aren't going to be too influenced by
laws banning what tools of murder they can use."
Both Watson and Steele believe that, once a suspect is
in custody and ballistics examiners can compare his or her weapon to the
bullets and shell casings recovered at the crime scenes, authorities will be
able to use that evidence to aid in obtaining a conviction.
