Harry Tuttle
Member
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2003
- Messages
- 3,093
TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION TO REPEAL OF MARYLAND BALLISTICS INFORMATION SYSTEM (HB 179)
by Josh Horwitz, Executive Director, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
http://www.csgv.org/news/news_releases.cfm?pressReleaseID=104
Management failures by the State Police - not technological barriers - are at the core of problems with Maryland's ballistics information system.? The State Police claim the system doesn't work, but the available evidence shows the real problem is that they're not really serious about implementing it and have knowingly allowed gun manufactures to skirt the law with no consequences.
A law passed in 2000 requires manufacturers to include test-fired shell casings with every new handgun shipped to retailers in Maryland for entry into a database that police can use to match casings found at crime scenes with firearms known to have been sold in the state.? Once the gun has been identified, it can be traced to its original purchaser, who may be a suspect or witness to the crime.
John Tobin, the head of the State Police Forensics Sciences Division and the author of a report that recommended repealing the ballistics law, told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee last week that one major reason the database has produced only six "hits" tying casings to guns used in crimes is that manufacturers often ship guns with casings from a different firearm.
Let's be clear: Maryland law requires that every new handgun sold in the state must ship with two casings from that same gun.? Failure to provide the correct casings with each gun is a clear-cut violation of state law, yet the state police have allowed the practice to continue without sanctioning the manufacturers or taking other corrective action.
Mr. Tobin said this problem is so pervasive that he considers the database "poisoned," preventing useful comparisons between casings from crimes and the more than 43,000 test-fired casings from new guns in the database.? This testimony suggests that the State Police know gun makers have failed to comply with the law, yet they think the answer is to repeal it instead of trying to enforce it.
The State Police should be embarrassed by their failure to make sure the gun industry obeys the law.? After all, Mr. Tobin's statements last week merely confirm what independent researchers reported as early as the spring of 2003: that the ballistics information system has been compromised by the failure of firearms makers to live up to their obligation to deliver the correct shell casings with new guns.
In his testimony, Mr. Tobin also said only 208 shell casings have been submitted for comparison to the database largely because the State Police laboratory in Pikesville has the only computer terminal that can analyze them.? As Tobin put it, 'If an agency wanted to search the database, they would have to come to Pikesville because Pikesville can't come to them.'
Mr. Tobin said the mobile terminal provided by the state's contractor did not work, but he could not explain why the State Police did not seek alternative methods of sending shell casing information to State Police headquarters, such as asking permission to use the federal government's ballistic system to transmit images to Pikesville.? State law enforcement officials in New York received permission to use this method of sending images to their central ballistic database, but Maryland apparently has never explored this option or asked New York about how its system works.
As Mr. Tobin acknowledged, Maryland uses the same technology used by the federal ballistics information system, NIBIN, which has proven that the technology is effective.? A 2002 study released by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) found that 'numerous violent crimes involving firearms have been solved through use of the system, many of which would not have been solved without it.'? By 2002, the system had logged over 5,300 "hits" connecting guns to crimes where no link was previously known.
Neither the State Police nor the firearm industry seems to have taken its responsibilities to implement the ballistics information law seriously.? Instead of repealing the law, the General Assembly should insist that the system gets a fair test of its value to law enforcement.? Therefore we ask members of this committee to oppose HB 179.
Excerpts from Tobin's testimony to the Senate Committee on Judicial Proceedings:
On why only 208 casings have been submitted for comparison to the database:
"If an agency wanted to search the database, they would have to come to Pikesville, because Pikesville can't go to them."
On the technology used by the Maryland ballistics database:
"The technology is good.? The technology used in the Maryland IBIS system is the same as that which is used in NIBIN," the federal government's ballistics database of shells from crime scenes.
On the difference between Maryland's DNA database and the ballistics database:
"There is a main difference - the credentials of the [DNA] database itself are more certain than those that are in Maryland IBIS," the ballistics database.
On the consequences for criminal investigations of the firearm industry's failure to comply with requirement to submit correct shell casings with each new handgun sold in Maryland:
"I have one major case in New York in which a handgun was . . . . purchased in the state of Maryland and used in a double homicide . . . . When investigating officers from New York came down here with the cartridge cases from that crime, they tried to match them to find the gun.? It did not find the gun.? But when the gun was recovered from the suspect and test-fired, it did match the casings found at the crime scene in New York, but it did not hit in the Maryland IBIS system.
"One of the reasons for that is that we cannot guarantee that the cartridge cases allegedly put in the box by the manufacturer do match up with that gun . . . . I have reason to think that the database is poisoned . . . . If I cannot put my trust in the database, how do I know if I have a hit or not?
"There's no quality control on them sending the cartridge cases in.? You just get a box that says, 'These were fired,' [and] I'm taking their word on that.? You wouldn't want me to put your DNA in a system just based on somebody else's word, and that's basically what we have here."
###
by Josh Horwitz, Executive Director, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
http://www.csgv.org/news/news_releases.cfm?pressReleaseID=104
Management failures by the State Police - not technological barriers - are at the core of problems with Maryland's ballistics information system.? The State Police claim the system doesn't work, but the available evidence shows the real problem is that they're not really serious about implementing it and have knowingly allowed gun manufactures to skirt the law with no consequences.
A law passed in 2000 requires manufacturers to include test-fired shell casings with every new handgun shipped to retailers in Maryland for entry into a database that police can use to match casings found at crime scenes with firearms known to have been sold in the state.? Once the gun has been identified, it can be traced to its original purchaser, who may be a suspect or witness to the crime.
John Tobin, the head of the State Police Forensics Sciences Division and the author of a report that recommended repealing the ballistics law, told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee last week that one major reason the database has produced only six "hits" tying casings to guns used in crimes is that manufacturers often ship guns with casings from a different firearm.
Let's be clear: Maryland law requires that every new handgun sold in the state must ship with two casings from that same gun.? Failure to provide the correct casings with each gun is a clear-cut violation of state law, yet the state police have allowed the practice to continue without sanctioning the manufacturers or taking other corrective action.
Mr. Tobin said this problem is so pervasive that he considers the database "poisoned," preventing useful comparisons between casings from crimes and the more than 43,000 test-fired casings from new guns in the database.? This testimony suggests that the State Police know gun makers have failed to comply with the law, yet they think the answer is to repeal it instead of trying to enforce it.
The State Police should be embarrassed by their failure to make sure the gun industry obeys the law.? After all, Mr. Tobin's statements last week merely confirm what independent researchers reported as early as the spring of 2003: that the ballistics information system has been compromised by the failure of firearms makers to live up to their obligation to deliver the correct shell casings with new guns.
In his testimony, Mr. Tobin also said only 208 shell casings have been submitted for comparison to the database largely because the State Police laboratory in Pikesville has the only computer terminal that can analyze them.? As Tobin put it, 'If an agency wanted to search the database, they would have to come to Pikesville because Pikesville can't come to them.'
Mr. Tobin said the mobile terminal provided by the state's contractor did not work, but he could not explain why the State Police did not seek alternative methods of sending shell casing information to State Police headquarters, such as asking permission to use the federal government's ballistic system to transmit images to Pikesville.? State law enforcement officials in New York received permission to use this method of sending images to their central ballistic database, but Maryland apparently has never explored this option or asked New York about how its system works.
As Mr. Tobin acknowledged, Maryland uses the same technology used by the federal ballistics information system, NIBIN, which has proven that the technology is effective.? A 2002 study released by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) found that 'numerous violent crimes involving firearms have been solved through use of the system, many of which would not have been solved without it.'? By 2002, the system had logged over 5,300 "hits" connecting guns to crimes where no link was previously known.
Neither the State Police nor the firearm industry seems to have taken its responsibilities to implement the ballistics information law seriously.? Instead of repealing the law, the General Assembly should insist that the system gets a fair test of its value to law enforcement.? Therefore we ask members of this committee to oppose HB 179.
Excerpts from Tobin's testimony to the Senate Committee on Judicial Proceedings:
On why only 208 casings have been submitted for comparison to the database:
"If an agency wanted to search the database, they would have to come to Pikesville, because Pikesville can't go to them."
On the technology used by the Maryland ballistics database:
"The technology is good.? The technology used in the Maryland IBIS system is the same as that which is used in NIBIN," the federal government's ballistics database of shells from crime scenes.
On the difference between Maryland's DNA database and the ballistics database:
"There is a main difference - the credentials of the [DNA] database itself are more certain than those that are in Maryland IBIS," the ballistics database.
On the consequences for criminal investigations of the firearm industry's failure to comply with requirement to submit correct shell casings with each new handgun sold in Maryland:
"I have one major case in New York in which a handgun was . . . . purchased in the state of Maryland and used in a double homicide . . . . When investigating officers from New York came down here with the cartridge cases from that crime, they tried to match them to find the gun.? It did not find the gun.? But when the gun was recovered from the suspect and test-fired, it did match the casings found at the crime scene in New York, but it did not hit in the Maryland IBIS system.
"One of the reasons for that is that we cannot guarantee that the cartridge cases allegedly put in the box by the manufacturer do match up with that gun . . . . I have reason to think that the database is poisoned . . . . If I cannot put my trust in the database, how do I know if I have a hit or not?
"There's no quality control on them sending the cartridge cases in.? You just get a box that says, 'These were fired,' [and] I'm taking their word on that.? You wouldn't want me to put your DNA in a system just based on somebody else's word, and that's basically what we have here."
###
