Why Anti-Gunners Suppress Truth
About ?Ballistic Fingerprinting?

By Joe Waldron and Dave Workman

In the emotional frenzy that has surrounded the Beltway Sniper case, gun
control extremists have seized upon a still-developing technology
erroneously called ?ballistic fingerprinting? as their newest panacea du
jour.

Promoting a solid crime-fighting tool is one thing. Pandering a
ballistic imaging system of questionable reliability is quite another
but gun control proponents long ago discovered that an uneducated and
frightened public will buy any snake oil that promises to remedy their
darkest fears, without knowing its ingredients, or understanding its
worst side effects. They have used this strategy to sell background
checks, waiting periods, one-gun-a-month limits and other schemes, none
of which has had a significant impact on reducing gun crimes, suicides
or accidental deaths.

Honest firearms experts know this, yet anti-gun politicians like U.S.
Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and California Attorney General Bill
Lockyer ? motivated by an urge to enact increasingly restrictive gun
laws ? are breaking a sweat to suppress the facts.

In October 2001, the California Department of Justice?s Bureau of
Forensic Services issued a technical evaluation on the feasibility of
creating a ballistics imaging database for all new handgun sales in the
state. That report said ?automated computer matching systems do not
provide conclusive results.? In his executive summary, Sacramento and
Santa Rosa Criminalistics Laboratories Director Frederic A. Tulleners
wrote, ?When applying this technology to the concept of mass sampling of
manufactured firearms, a huge inventory of potential candidates will be
generated for manual review. 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.?

That document remained in obscurity for a year because Lockyer slapped
what essentially was a gag order on anyone connected with the research.
Tulleners and his boss, Lance Gima, have been muzzled. Media calls are
being routed to a spokeswoman in Lockyer?s office, even though she lacks
the technical expertise to answer detailed questions. She will only say
that the research is ?not complete.? It never will be, at least not
until the findings can be manipulated to support the argument that
?ballistic fingerprinting? should become a national mandate.

The report?s existence became public knowledge in mid-October, amid the
Beltway Sniper hysteria. Immediately, Lockyer downplayed the report?s
significance. Schumer, appearing on NBC?s Meet The Press on Oct. 20,
falsely asserted that the report has been discredited. That same day,
Lockyer called for the creation of a national ballistics database,
noting that California is ?currently evaluating the feasibility and cost
of creating and maintaining its own such database,? even though his own
experts told him a year ago it probably would not work.

Ironically, the most staunch advocates of ballistic ?fingerprinting? are
many of the same people who support ?don?t ask, don?t tell? gun buyback
programs. They are good for headlines, but lousy for preventing or
solving crimes. Buybacks expressly preclude collection of the kind of
information that is a cornerstone of ballistic ?fingerprinting,?
specifically a ballistics test of the guns to see if any were used in
any crimes, and the identities of the persons who turned them in.

Preventing crime is not, and never has been, the goal of extremist
anti-gunners. They want only to capture the identities of law-abiding
gun owners; people whose willingness to follow the law has only led them
to be treated like criminals for exercising a Constitutional right. Gun
banners are now shamelessly exploiting the sniper killings to advance
their political agenda.

Lockyer, Schumer and other gun control fanatics want a nationwide
ballistic imaging database because it would create a de facto gun
registry. Californians learned about gun registration the hard way.
Several years ago, California passed a law requiring registration of
certain semi-automatic firearms. Later, owners of those guns were
ordered to divest themselves of their firearms or move them out of
state, thanks to subsequent legislation that outlawed their possession.

In truth, there is no such thing as a ?ballistic fingerprint.? A far
more accurate term is ?ballistic signature,? because these are not
unique ? as are fingerprints ? and they can be changed intentionally or
due to wear on a firearm. These signatures are created by tool marks
left on parts of a firearm. Similar, perhaps even identical,
?signatures? on bullets could be produced by gun barrels coming off the
production line sequentially.

Ballistic imaging has successfully linked recovered firearms to specific
crime scenes, so the technology has been useful to some degree. However,
to suggest it is something more than one tool among many with which
investigators can build a case is, at least with current technology, a
stretch of credulity.

Considerably more research and development is necessary before anyone
should ever accept ballistic imaging as the crime-solving tool its
proponents say it is. The Bush White House and major gun owner groups,
including the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms,
and the National Rifle Association, have agreed that the technology
needs more study.

Owning a gun is the only civil right guaranteed in our Constitution for
which citizens must first get permission from the FBI before they
exercise it. Imagine having to get police permission to vote, attend a
public meeting, go to church or operate a news agency.

The press corps has been far too willing to sensationalize, and perhaps
exaggerate, the capabilities of ballistic imaging. Reporters should be
equally interested in the motives of its most rabid supporters.
Likewise, it would behoove law enforcement investigators and anti-gun
extremists to remember that, even in a period of heightened alert and
intensive criminal investigation, this is still the United States, and
not a police state.

Joe Waldron is executive director of the Citizens Committee for the
Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Dave Workman is senior editor of Gun Week,
a national firearms publication.