This is what happens with gun registration

[Hohn]

This is the science of ballistic forensics.

I actually take issue with ballistic forensics being considered a science.

How many actual "sciences" are completely created by, managed by, and confined to the law enforcement community?

Fact-- fingerprints have not been proven to be unique. They vary a great deal, but it has never been proven that fingerprints actually are unique.

Are fingerprints really infallible, unique ID? ? The Register

Bullet-to-gun matching seems pretty absurd to me as well. If you take two "identical" Glocks and fire 500rds of the same ammo through each, you'd be hard pressed to see which gun a 501st round came from. Oh, you can certainly pick one that seems more likely.

But HOW MUCH more likely? You already have a 50% of being right though pure chance.

This is the kind of "pseudoscience" that results from cops pretending to be scientists.

If I was a jury member, you better have a LOT better evidence than trying to convince me that a specific bullet (which is likely to be mangled beyond recognition) came from a specific gun (*THE* gun)rather than just *A* gun of that type.

JMO

 

[ryknoll3]

Despite the tin foil hats, there is no database. Gun dealers have to do traces on firearms used in crimes all the time. The ATF starts with the manufacture, they find out what distributer it went to, they talk to them and find out what FFL they sold it to, then they contact the gun shop to see who it was sold to, then if they go to that individual and he says "I sold it at the Indy 1500 to a resident of the state", it's over right there. I guess the fact that your gun has a serial number is in a sense a database, but if they had all that info at their fingertips they wouldn't be wasting everyone's time with these traces.

...Until your dealer goes out of business. Then there most certainly is a database. According to the ATF, they have 300 million records since 1968.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

When was it last updated is the question. They started to form one about 20 years ago then were defunded. What have they admitted to?

ATFE has admitted to creating a database more than several times.

The first time that I am aware of is in 1995 on a news program called "Day One". Ron Noble, then ATF Directed admitted on national television that his agency was creating a database of gun owner records.

It is my understanding that the database comes from old dealer records, Operation Forward Trace, individual city programs (e.g. the Pittsburgh Project), the .50 Program, results of criminal investigations, informants, etc.

The database is far from complete but it exists.

 

[jevin]

ATFE has admitted to creating a database more than several times.

The first time that I am aware of is in 1995 on a news program called "Day One". Ron Noble, then ATF Directed admitted on national television that his agency was creating a database of gun owner records.

It is my understanding that the database comes from old dealer records, Operation Forward Trace, individual city programs (e.g. the Pittsburgh Project), the .50 Program, results of criminal investigations, informants, etc.

The database is far from complete but it exists.

Sounds like they use everything but the NICS checks!

 

[CarmelHP]

I actually take issue with ballistic forensics being considered a science.

Correct. There are standardized markers for comparison in ballistics. It's all basically guesswork and supposition. Fingerprint analysis, at least, does have accepted standardized markers for comparison, that's why computer checks can be run for matches. Fingerprints aren't necessarily unique or the process infallible but statistical probabilities can be generated by comparing samples. That's not possible with the "art" of ballistics.

 

[CarmelHP]

ATFE has admitted to creating a database more than several times.

The first time that I am aware of is in 1995 on a news program called "Day One". Ron Noble, then ATF Directed admitted on national television that his agency was creating a database of gun owner records.

It is my understanding that the database comes from old dealer records, Operation Forward Trace, individual city programs (e.g. the Pittsburgh Project), the .50 Program, results of criminal investigations, informants, etc.

The database is far from complete but it exists.

Which is why ATF should have been disbabded years ago, the agents fired and scattered to the four winds and the ground sown with salt.

 

[whoismunky]

Too bad we've got that pesky LTCH...

 

[uberpeck]

Canada tried a long gun registry; failed at it, but only after spending billions of tax dollars on the dumb thing.