Ballistic Fingerprinting: the New Big Dig

        The Pink Pistols, a collection of sexual minorities defending the right to keep and bear arms, called Massachusetts State Senator Cheryl Jacques' newest gun control plan "misguided and harmful to public safety".

    "Maryland and New York have already deployed this mandatory 'ballistic fingerprinting' scheme, with terrible results," explained Pink Pistols founder Doug Krick. "Those systems have cost tens of millions of dollars, swallow more money every year, and haven't solved a single crime."
   
    Krick said the proposed legislation poses a threat to public safety because it consumes an inordinate share of police budgets that should be spent on more effective crime-fighting means.   "How many bashings outside of bars have mandatory ballistic imaging programs stopped? None," challenged Krick. "But how many crimes could have been stopped had that money been spent on old-fashioned patrol officers?"

    Krick explained that the program's flaw lies not with the technology, but in the misguided attempt to use it on every gun instead of guns found at crime scenes. "Ballistic imaging is a useful forensic tool," Krick noted. "But calling it 'fingerprinting' is completely misleading. Unlike fingerprints, microscopic tool marks on guns change over time with normal use and no longer match the original image well. The technology is designed to match evidence from crime scenes to recovered guns, not to identify every gun."

    Krick noted that California chose not to deploy a similar system after police forensics study found serious problems trying to mandate ballistic imaging. "When the California Department of Justice tested the same pistol with varying ammunition brands, 63% of the time the actual gun used did not appear in the top 15 suggested matches,” explained Krick. "This means that 63% of the time, 15 innocent people would have had their gun match better than the actual crime gun." Krick called a mandatory imaging system "a defense attorney's dream, an innocent citizen's nightmare" and suggested that the system's primary value to Jacques is its ability to harass gun owners.

    Ironically, Senator Jacques own past legislation has insured the system would not work well in Massachusetts, Krick explained. Bogus 'consumer safety tests' Jacques lobbied for have forced most gun models off the market, and many Massachusetts manufacturers cannot sell their guns in their own state. "Due to Senator Jacques' own actions, only a few handgun models can be sold in Massachusetts. Any database we made in Massachusetts would contain mostly the same models of gun, making identification even worse."

    Krick called the program a wasteful special interest program to placate the gun control lobby. "Massachusetts has enough lingering boondoggles that cost fortunes to run, produce nothing useful for our citizens, and are impossible to shut down," said Krick. "We do not need yet another."

    He proposed Massachusetts postpone any discussion of funding a mandatory ballistic imaging system until proponents could demonstrate that such systems produce any positive public value.


Any problems with the transmission of this FAX, to be removed from the fax list, as well as inquiries about the Pink Pistols please contact Doug Krick at 617-686-5762 or at dkrick@pinkpistols.org.
For more information contact either:

Doug Krick              617-678-5762     dkrick@pinkpistols.org
David Rostcheck     214-707-1004     davidr@pinkpistols.org