Top 16 Ways Criminals will Defeat Microstamping

[jefnvk]

I doubt there will be much avoidance going on. Sure, the good ones will find a way, but thats why they are good. I doubt the average criminal is going to take the time to grind off stampings that they probably cant see, let alone know what guns to grind in the first place. Don't forget the stories of criminals that can't even get the correct ammunition for their weapons.

That said, I think the two most common ways that are gonna be used, are stolen guns and revolvers, simply because they take no extra effort ont he criminals part.

For those that are actually smart, the ones whose crimes are a bit bigger and better planned out, they are probably gonna use clean guns.

 

[AugustusMcCrae]

I think they'll just use the unmarked guns they have already.

 

[romma]

All micro-stamping will accomplish: punish law abiding gun owners through higher pricing and limited selection and hoop jumping...

When I say limited supply, I mean it. There are already a number of manufacturers that won't or can't sell their wares there.

 

[Librarian]

I think they'll just use the unmarked guns they have already.

That's what I expect.

Fiddling with the gun numbers from Kleck and more recent numbers from the BATF, it seems likely that California has somewhere around 30 to 40 million firearms. That's a very wide range, mostly because by-state numbers are hard to come by, and no one is aggregating the numbers of guns possessed by folks moving in or out. It's roughly proportional to the state's percentage of the US population * the number of guns BATF reported as ((manufactured + imported) - exported) each year.

So, it's not 7 zillion, but it might as well be. Recent state sales data suggests we're buying ~300K per year, so that number ought to be up another million by 2010.

We buy about 1/3 semi-auto pistols out of that 300K. Even if ONLY microstamped pistols were available after 2010, if we kept buying at the same rate, the number of microstamped guns would be diluted 2/1 every year.

It can't work as the proponents claim.

I wrote every member of both houses of the Legislature and the Governor, pointing out (with real numbers, sources and details) this information.

They passed it anyway.

The odds of this bill being about it's stated purpose are probably close to the odds of randomly stealing a microstamping gun in January, 2011.

 

[ReadyontheRight]

Immediately throw the gun away and steal another one. Just like what they do now.

 

[Crunker1337]

Resort to sawed-off shotguns. Or, even more threateningly, openly carrying machineguns down the street. In a dangerous neighborhood if you have a reputation of violence, no one will dare call the police.

 

[dav]

I'm going to start a new business making microstamped firing pins... you select what you want them to say.

Most firing pins are user-replaceable.

Something like the "Have a Nice Day" muzzle brake...

 

[Alexfubar]

legally buy a gun with valid ID , register it , give proper name and address to State , use it in crime and leave the brass behind , wait to be picked up by the fierce Dept of Microstamping Database dudes.

Oh , wait: I forgot , this is reality , not gunbanner dreamland. How about they completely ignore the whole thing , and do what they've always done ?

 

[obxned]

After you are dead, dead, dead, the bad guy might or might not be caught by this 'wonderful, new, scientific' technology. Won't you family be pleased!!!

 

[carnaby]

So nobody like my idea to put small patches of duct tape over the primers? I wonder if it would even work?

 

[cpttango30]

How about Just be a criminal. Scumbag, Dirtbag, lowlife, worthless air sucking waste of (Well I will stop there).

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Microstamping, if it ever becomes a reality, will prove to be totally irrelevent, and an even bigger and more expensive boondoggle than "ballistic fingerprinting" (of which it nothing but a variation). Look at Maryland. How much have they spent on that system, and how many crimes has it solved?

Millions / none

Criminals don't haveto worry about "defeating" microstamping. The system is already defeated, since IT CANNOT WORK. Criminals don't buy guns and register them -- they steal guns, and/or they buy guns that someone else stole. So what is microstamping going to do for crime solving? After picking up brass at a crime scene, the intrepid investigators will dutifully return to the lab, fire up the microscopes, read the microstamped numbers, refer to the database ... and discover that the murder weapon was reported stolen six months ago.

Yup, that'll be a tremendous help in solving crimes.

 

[Novus Collectus]

In California the average time from leaving an FFL to the moment it is used in a crime is 12.7 years with only ten percent under three years from sale to crime. So that means it will be at least the year 2022 before even close to the majority of handguns used in crimes in CA will be the new production microstamp guns.
But that is of course not including the number of guns traced in California that came from other states. Only 8,000 of the 21,000 or so guns where traces were conducted on in CA in 2006 came from CA. The overwhelming number of guns traced in CA weren't even sold in CA.
Since microstamping will not be national and since many manufacturers may take many years before they follow suit, there will be many more years of guns sold in other states not microstamped pouring into CA, so it may be twenty or thirty years before the majority of guns used in CA crimes were origionally microstamped.
But then of course most of the guns that were microstamped in 2010 would have worn off from use by then and the cycle continues........
The CA legislature mentality makes me :banghead:

http://www.atf.treas.gov/firearms/trace_data/states_and_territories/cy2006-california.pdf

 

[ConfuseUs]

I picked use one of the non-microstamped guns as #1, just because the supply is so huge. That's presuming that criminals deliberately try to game the system.

However, even if every gun in CA was microstamped, I don't think the average criminal would do a damn thing different than they do now. That's because most criminals obtained their guns illegally to begin with, they certainly aren't registering them, and many of them are already familiar with ballistic evidence in the form of ejected shell casings or bullets. So many criminals already know that hanging onto a gun used to commit a crime isn't such a bright idea.

The presumption of the microstamping bill is that Joe Blow, Law Abiding Citizen, buys a gun and registers it. A month or a year or whatever later the evil gun spirits make Joe Blow commit a gun crime. Since Joe Blow's gun conveniently left its serial number stamped into the shell casings found at the crime scene, the cops simply show up at Joe Blow's house and arrest him. Perhaps they are waiting for him on the doorstep before Joe Blow even gets home from the crime scene.

The reality is that Joe Badguy, Law Breaking Citizen, acquires a gun off the street in a transaction with paperwork involving at most the exchange of paper currency. Perhaps the gun itself is banned as well. Most likely Joe Badguy is also banned from owning/buying guns. Joe Badguy goes and commits a crime with his gun. The cops collect the shell casings and bullets from the crime scene. Later on, if they catch Joe Badguy with his gun they ballistically test his gun to see if it was used in any crimes. If Joe Badguy is a somewhat savvy criminal he already knows that hanging onto a gun involved in a crime is dumb because guns already imprint a unique signature onto shell casings. Most likely he was going to get rid of the gun after using it anyway. Why should he give a crock of feces if his gun is microstamped? All he's going to care about is if the gun can be traced back to him at the time he used it to commit a crime.

So really the only effect of microstamping guns in CA will have is that the thugs might work a little harder at not keeping crime guns around.

 

[ColinthePilot]

Its a crime solving technique only Grissom could love.
Personally, I'd be the unheard of thug who likes to reload. I'd be at the range for a whole day with a bucket and a shovel scooping up any brass they'll let me take. After I kill whoever it is i'm killing that day, I dump a couple hundred casings from my stash. The cops would have a hell of a time figuring out how a body with three 9mm holes in it left behind 300rds of everything from .22LR to 30.06 to .45ACP. meanwhile, my ride (which I stole from the poor body swimming in brass back there) is riding a bit low from the ten 5-gallon buckets of spent casings in the trunk and that 9mm i used is already in the landfill.

With all the creative minds in Kali (and all the criminals for that matter), why are we the ones that come up with the interesting scenarios to beat this thing?

 

[AtticusThraxx]

When "Move to Jersey" is a possible answer, how could I not click it?

 

[Blackbeard]

Show me one common thug who has ever used a gun that he purchased legally in his own name.

 

[revjen45]

A Kratex wheel on a dremel tool would probably smear it enough to void all evidentiary value. Ooops- now they will want to ban Dremel tools too.
Disclaimer- I am not advocating breaking the law, even in the Communist state of the DPRK. I don't understand the new law and am not advocating illegal activity. If you don't like it do what I did. Vote with your feet. The DPRK is already irretrievably lost. Staying behind to oppose The Monster is like opposing the NKVD in Stalin's Proletarian Paradise. It will just waste your time at best or get you sent to the Gulag at worst.

 

[SuperNaut]

Why would a criminal care about microstamping when he's using a stolen gun?

 

[jakeswensonmt]

A smart criminal (there are some) would just wear latex gloves and leave the stolen microstamped gun in the street right next to the brass it just chucked. Anyone who watches mafia movies has seen this practice.

 

[Librarian]

A Kratex wheel on a dremel tool would probably smear it enough to void all evidentiary value. Ooops- now they will want to ban Dremel tools too.
Disclaimer- I am not advocating breaking the law,

No, you're not -- it is not illegal, in the current state of the law, to remove those marking areas on the gun.

 

[v35]

that's not the point

Everyone is getting waaay off track on this. Despite what the governator said in his press release, microstamping has nothing to do with criminal investigation or crime reduction.

Any sentient individual should immediately question why someone intending to commit a crime would intentionally leave evidence so easily linking his presence to the crime scene. Why would any lawmaker think this will actually reduce crime? Do criminals routinely use guns registered in their name and just drop their business cards at the scene of a crime? Of course not - criminals use stolen guns, stolen cell phones, stolen cars, stolen whatever so they're not so easily caught. The intent of this law is to reduce the number of firearms sold in CA, through manufacturer disinterest or increased prices due to compliance with this new law. And as CA goes, so goes the country.

The intent is also to harass legal gun owners, by having their fired brass show up in all kinds of places where their brass ought not to. Don't think of crime scenes - think of school playgrounds. Day care centers. Think of the children. I found brass from your gun in my child's sandbox. How do you plead?

Next: once it's discovered that the microstamping surfaces eventually wear to the degree that they no longer cause readable imprints, there will be legislation introduced that will require periodic inspections of firearms to ensure they remain "safe" i.e. in compliance with the law. When the identifying marks on firing pins, breech faces, or whatever wear away those components will have to be replaced if you want to keep your gun in service. Otherwise the gun will be considered "unsafe" subjecting you to penalties for its possession. It's not a logical stretch - if microstamping is "good" then properly applied imprints will be required as a continued maintenance function. Your 2A rights aren't being infringed, this is just an administrative procedure to ensure compliance with a "good" law, like a NICS check. The fact that it may cost a lot of money or render firearms useless after a short time doesn't infringe upon your rights. It just costs you a little more money (so they'll say). I don't know how many fired rounds will cause the imprinted surfaces to become unreadable but I imagine the number is less than tens of thousands.

Of course the criminals won't care to keep their firearms "safe" in compliance with the law. So, who's the intended target of this law? You: the law abiding gun owner.

As always: Gun control is not about guns. It's about control. Microstamping is a very very odious can of worms.