Carl N. Brown
Member
There is no solid guarantee that after a small amount of wear, tear and vigorous cleaning, the chamber will leave the same marks on the case, or that the case in the box came from the gun in the box.
There is a "ballistic fingerprint" system that has some valid law enforcement use: NIBIN or National Integrated Ballistic Identification Network. That's a data base of scanned crime scene ballistic evidence that can tie a weapon recovered in possession of a suspect to previous crime(s) committed with the same gun.
If you point out that the Maryland database of samples from all guns sold at retail has not solved a crime or convicted a suspect, its fans point out that it increased the cost of buying a gun in Maryland and therefore made guns less available to the average Maryland gun buyer. I suspect that is the real reason behind it.
The Canadian national gun registry is a source for some relevant analysis on systems aimed at gun owners supposedly to target crime. Canada has had registration of handguns since 1934 and of rifles and shotguns since 1997. Canada 2003 to 2009 had 4,257 homicides, of which 1,314 were with firearms (all types). The firearm was ID'd in less than 1/3 of cases. Of ID'd firearms, 3/4 were unregistered. Of the registered firearms, a total of 62 were registered in the name of the accused. Even in those 62, conviction did not hinge on registration data. Most of those were handguns.
Apparently in no case did the registration lead to identifying the suspect. First the suspect was identified by other evidence, such as motive and opportunity rather than means, then it emerged that the 62 of the 1,314 had a registered gun. And those 62 were the minority of gun homicides: in the majority, the gun was usually not identified. If identified, the gun was usually not registered. If registered, the gun was about half the time not registered to the suspect.
In the history of the Canadian long gun (rifle and shotgun) registry, a total of 3 (three) long guns were traced to the accused in murder cases. The trace information was of minor importance in prosecuting the crime, and of little or no importance in solving the crime. The long gun registry is scheduled to be dismantled: after 17 years and 2.7 billion dollars it has proven to be useless in fighting crime.
For similar reasons, there is a movement in Maryland to end their ballistic fingerprint database. The money spendt in Maryland could have fully funded a number of full time police, or been used to upgrade training or equipment for law enforcement.
There is a "ballistic fingerprint" system that has some valid law enforcement use: NIBIN or National Integrated Ballistic Identification Network. That's a data base of scanned crime scene ballistic evidence that can tie a weapon recovered in possession of a suspect to previous crime(s) committed with the same gun.
If you point out that the Maryland database of samples from all guns sold at retail has not solved a crime or convicted a suspect, its fans point out that it increased the cost of buying a gun in Maryland and therefore made guns less available to the average Maryland gun buyer. I suspect that is the real reason behind it.
The Canadian national gun registry is a source for some relevant analysis on systems aimed at gun owners supposedly to target crime. Canada has had registration of handguns since 1934 and of rifles and shotguns since 1997. Canada 2003 to 2009 had 4,257 homicides, of which 1,314 were with firearms (all types). The firearm was ID'd in less than 1/3 of cases. Of ID'd firearms, 3/4 were unregistered. Of the registered firearms, a total of 62 were registered in the name of the accused. Even in those 62, conviction did not hinge on registration data. Most of those were handguns.
Apparently in no case did the registration lead to identifying the suspect. First the suspect was identified by other evidence, such as motive and opportunity rather than means, then it emerged that the 62 of the 1,314 had a registered gun. And those 62 were the minority of gun homicides: in the majority, the gun was usually not identified. If identified, the gun was usually not registered. If registered, the gun was about half the time not registered to the suspect.
In the history of the Canadian long gun (rifle and shotgun) registry, a total of 3 (three) long guns were traced to the accused in murder cases. The trace information was of minor importance in prosecuting the crime, and of little or no importance in solving the crime. The long gun registry is scheduled to be dismantled: after 17 years and 2.7 billion dollars it has proven to be useless in fighting crime.
For similar reasons, there is a movement in Maryland to end their ballistic fingerprint database. The money spendt in Maryland could have fully funded a number of full time police, or been used to upgrade training or equipment for law enforcement.
