Micro stamping; Good Bad or indifferent?
Micro stamping; Good Bad or indifferent?
As pulled from wikipedia on microstamping:
Firearm microstamping, ballistic imprinting and ballistic engraving are all names given to a technology that has been developed with the goal of aiding in ballistics identification; it involves the use of laser technology to engrave a microscopic marking onto the tip of the firing pin and onto the breech face of a firearm. When the firearm is fired, these etchings are transferred to the primer by the firing pin and to the cartridge case by the breech face, using the pressure created when a round is fired.
Ok with that said let me play devil’s advocate on both sides of this issue so you can decide weather or not it is a good thing. I will also try to be as logical as I can on this issue.
On paper it sounds like a great idea. However on paper communism is the best form of running a country, ON PAPER. If every firearm and round of ammunition in the world was microstamped it could possibly cut crimes down so far it wouldn’t be funny. Let me explain, you fire a round and kill the only witness to your crim, both the bullet and case would be traced back to the exact firearm that shot it. In theory all firearm and ammunition manufactories would have their individual microstamps on file with government, hence the government would have all “fingerprints” and would be able to match them all up. Sounds great put all those criminals away. Here is where some issues begin to come in place. Every single firearm and round of ammunition since the invention of riffling has a fingerprint. No 2 guns have the same way of marking a round as it is fired. Just watch an episode of CSI, or ask any expert at handmade firearms. It is virtually impossible to have 2 guns have the same markings on a round when it leave’s the barrel. As it seems to me all microstamping will do in practice is make ballistic expertise an obsolete knowledge. Again who can logically argue with microstamping?
Well I am sure going to give it a try. Kentucky I believe as a law now or are about to have a law outlawing all microstamped firearms and ammunition not manufactured in the state of Kentucky. This law is not an outright violation of the second amendment of the constitution. “NOT AN OUTRIGHT” are the key words. So lets go down one paranoid road together. Say the feds secretly or in one of our new “the only way to save this country is to have another trillion dollars” bills, add a single line saying that if a firearm or round of ammunition is not microstamped it is illegal. Then they announce that to all us gun lovers delight a few months or a year later that microstamping is illegal. Oops now all firearms are illegal. Or more likely will be something to extent of all firearms and ammunition must be microstamped. Adding a large cost to said firarm’s and ammunition, making them to expensive to own or use. Also making reloading illegal as well.
We as a nation are tittering on a razor sharp edge here. We could remain free and allow law-abiding people to legally own and fire guns. Or we can become great britton where only the criminals have guns. Isn’t it great Britton the reason why we have a second amendment anyway? If you can not answer that question go read an early American history book. Great britton is the exact reason. Our founding Father’s did not want our government to be able to trample on our individual rights.
Should gun owner’s rights supersede non gun owners right to heath and happiness? As a gun owner I say ABSOLUTLY NOT. However, as a hunter, gun owner, and gun enthusiast I’ll be damned if I am going to allow anyone to think my right’s do not matter, or take away my firearms. Which I legal own and fire at a shooting range. Also another thing to consider, Hunter’s are conservationist also. Without firearm’s how do we hunt? Bow’s and arrows? Sorry that’s not my thing, and not a lot of American’s things either.
OK I am straying off topic. Problem is, personally I can see both side of the argument. The theory that microstamping will help prevent crime, or at least help prosecute those do use firearms in commotion of a crime. However I do see the other side saying criminals are not allowed to have guns in the first place and microstamping will do nothing to prevent them from having and using them. So what is the point, some states are using microstamping as a way to ban firearms in their state. Will it be long before this is nation wide? I don’t know. Is this a good thing? Well that is for you the reader to decide. All I can suggest you do is decide for yourself and vote for those people who “support” your feelings.
I can give you another reason that this is a bad idea: how do you track this information and make it available to all law enforcement agencies?
I’m not going to get overly technical here, but consider this:
1. A study in 2003 estimated that the number of guns owned by civilians in the United States is between 238 million and 276 million.
2. The database required to house the number of individual pieces of information required for this to be effective would be horrendously complex in design, and require an enormous number of trained IT professionals to maintain (not to mention design, cost to license, and deploy).
3. The logistical enormity of the task.
Every single firearm in existence would be required to have (at minimum) the firing pin and breech face replaced to become “legal”. Every time you replace a firing pin (I’ve broken a few in my time), the database would have to be updated, and forget just being able to buy one, you’ll have to get it through a licensed FFL, and pay another fee for the update.
Not to mention that over time these “micro engravings” would simply wear off (any metal on metal contact will eventually remove enough material to render the micro stamping useless, this is why ballistics is not an exact science. The markings on a bullet fired from a gun at the factory will be FAR different than those of a gun that has had 50,000 rounds of ammunition run through it.
Bottom line, as you mentioned, in theory this may be a good idea (I’m not convinced), in practice it will have only bad effects. I really don’t think we need to worry about something like this as it is pretty much logistically impossible to do.