NEWTOWN, Conn. -- The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) today called on Congress to move quickly and enact legislation sponsored by U.S. Representative Melissa Hart (R-PA) in the House and U.S. Senator Zell Miller (D-GA) in the Senate that mandates the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a comprehensive study of ballistic imaging technology with the goal of determining its appropriate utilization as a law-enforcement tool. NSSF is the firearms industry trade association representing more than 2,200 businesses involved in all aspects of the hunting and shooting sports.

“I know it is very late in the congressional session, but I am calling on the House and Senate to bring up and pass H.R. 3491 and S. 2581, the Ballistic Imaging Evaluation and Study Act of 2002,” stated Doug Painter, president of NSSF. “This legislation will give everyone the scientific facts necessary to determine how ballistic imaging is best utilized in law enforcement. There is a lot of misinformation being circulated in the media and within policy circles that ballistic imaging is ‘DNA for guns,’ and this simply is not true. We need facts and that is what this study will give us.”

NSSF is supportive of the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) that is administered by of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF). This system analyzes spent bullet casings found at crime scenes to compare marks that could assist in ascertaining if a firearm has been used in multiple crimes. A study by the Bureau of Forensic Services at the California Department of Justice concluded that “automated computer matching [ballistic imaging] systems do not provide conclusive results.” Moreover the study revealed that attempting to increase the number of shell casings through mass sampling of firearms sold in the state would lead to a failure in the system. “The number of candidate cases would be so large as to be impractical and will likely create logistic complications so great that that they can not be effectively addressed,” forensic experts involved in the study wrote.

“NSSF shares the concerns highlighted in the California Department of Justice Report. Ballistic imaging is a new forensic technology, it is a tool and not the magic solution for solving firearms crimes as some would like us to believe,” stated Painter. “Our firearm manufacturers work closely with BATF to assist them in solving crimes committed with a firearm. The study outlined in the Ballistic Imaging Evaluation and Study Act will provide scientific conclusions to identified problems and assist in determining how best to utilize this technology and properly allocate vital law enforcement funding.”

This is the sort of thing that is important, and that we as gun owners should keep an eye on because this type of legislation can be amended by the anti gun crowd to to our detriment.

But as you can see from the number of replies and views people are far more interested in who's hot or looking at what someone's dinner pic is [:(]

This worries me also.  However, I would like to know how they plan on paying for such a scheme anyway.  Perhaps my info is outdated, but last time I checked congress hadn't even approved a budget yet.  This plan would cost a TON of money to implement and which dept. would pony up the dough for it.  

Also how would you get the million of gun owners to turn in their rifles, shotguns, and handguns, for testing.  Surely some would see this as registration and not let them be processed.  What are you going to do, arrest millions of gun owners who would defy such a stupid law?

Any thoughts?

They are not trying to get a law passed to make us do 'ballistic fingerprinting', this is to get a study done which, if done factually, would prove that 'ballistic fingerprinting' is completely ineffective.  Unfortunately, the antis would get their hands on it, either the original bill or the results, and distort it as they always do.  As the NSSF points out, the state of California has already shown it to be innaccurate and unwieldy, but the California politicians would never admit it.

They're going to have a republican controlled congress running the study. They study will come back with the truth: It will be expensive and it won't work. The issue will die for the forseeable future. And when there again is a cry for ballistic fingerprinting, they can pull out the study and say 'look at this'.

Yeah!

Seems to me that including firearms already privately owned would most emphatically be registration!

Having a fired shell casing from a specific firearm would be worthless without also having the serial number of that firearm and the identity of it’s owner.

I suspect the anti’s have already figured this out!

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Im ready to go!