I was just wondering why some members have "boycott glock" in their signature.  It could be just one member, but I've seen it a number of times.

Ben

One of the Glock bigshots went on record as being all for ballistic fingerprinting.
That set the boycott in motion.

Ballistic Fingerprinting is the markings on the bullet after being shot?  Just making sure I have definitions right.

Quoted: Ballistic Fingerprinting is the markings on the bullet after being shot?  Just making sure I have definitions right.

The term "Ballistic Fingerprinting" is the idea of having the government keep an image of a fired bullet and casing from every gun sold in the country. They could then supposedly take recovered casings or bullets from a crime scene and compare them to the database on hand. Most gun-owners see it as a backdoor gun registration scheme though.

Boycott glock?  Are you kidding me? I love these guns too much, to play those silly games.

There was a boycott?  Oh well... I just bought a brand new glock 17 last month.  very good price too.

Wouldnt the markings on the bullet be changed as soon as someone swapped out the barrel?

I own 4 Glocks and won't buy another.

Here are Glocks statements after their VP spilled the beans about the BF program and the shit hit the fan.  Sounds like they believe that BF could be a good thing, doesn't it.  The second statement is more doubletalk.

Statement #1

GLOCK is not for gun registration plain and simple.

A database of firearm characteristics that are captured at the manufacturing site would actually be an argument again registration. GLOCK is not for retrieving and capturing characteristics of firearms that have already been sold: but, rather, believes consideration should be given to capturing the characteristics on new firearms before sale. This way the characteristics are recorded to a serial number not a citizen and his or her gun.

It seems the last point is the most important; the characteristics are tied to a serial number, not a person. This means that since the characteristics are not tied to a person, the ATF would have to do the exact same trace it is entitled by law to do now. Once they receive the cartridge casing from a crime scene, they then would (if the technology works) have a serial number. That way they can go to the manufacturer and ask for the first sale, which, in this case would probably be to a distributor, then they go to the distributor and ask for the name of the dealer and then from the dealer they go to look at the 4473 to see to whom it was sold. If the technology were any good this would seem to be a valuable crime-solving tool, not gun registration. They have the absolute right to do such a trace under the law right now and they do it every single day with every gun manufacturer in existence. To argue against the above scenario would seem to be an argument for criminal anonymity.

Too many people are jumping to conclusions; one has to ask oneself, how could some liberal anti-gunner say people registration is necessary if this concept of a serial number being tied to a firearm’s characteristics is viable? Can it be defeated, sure it can. Can a barrel be altered so that standard ballistic identification of a bullet is defeated? Sure it can. But the jails are not full and overcrowded because criminals are geniuses.

There are obviously limits that need to be set when one speaks of Government intrusion into the life of a citizen. But that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about recording the mechanical characteristics of a firearm to a serial number and a serial number alone.

Will it work? We do not know. Will it be prohibitively expensive? Perhaps it will. But we cannot always just take the knee jerk reaction and say no because we are used to saying no. It needs time and study to either disprove or prove itself.

Because criminals are as big a threat to civilian ownership of firearms as the antigun are. If it were not for the criminals the anti-gunners would not have an argument against firearms ownership except that they do not trust the people. Would you not love to be around the day that mask finally comes off?

As noted above it is a matter of drawing the line in an intelligent place. And that place may be saying no in this instance, but I do not believe we are at the place and have the necessary information to make that decision. Could ballistic fingerprinting be used as an excuse to go further? Certainly, we are not naïve enough to believe the camel has its nose stuck as far under the tent as it cares to go. The trick is to draw the line on the slippery slope in an intelligent place. Obviously, a national database or DNA registry could be a great crime-solving tool. But will we as Americans allow that level of intrusion into our personal privacy? Of course we will not. Likewise here there has to be a balancing of costs (intrusion into personal freedom) to benefits (potential crime solving tool). And, since there is no intrusion into our personal freedom and there is a potential for it to be crime-solving tool the equation clearly comes down on the side of waiting to see if the technology has any viability.

Statement #2 ( posted February 11, 2003 )

GLOCK IS NOT keeping a database on ballistic fingerprint of GLOCK pistols being shipped and neither are we giving anyone else data to retain. We are not collecting any data that could be put into a database. The questions about ballistic fingerprinting were conceptual in nature as the technology is yet to be proven.

Yes, GLOCK is capturing shell casings at the time of test firing. For a firearm to be shipped to either Maryland or New York it must be accompanied by shell casings. Otherwise, law abiding citizens in Maryland and New York could not purchase handguns of any sort.

Since GLOCK may be the only handgun manufacturer that test fires every single weapon it ships, we capture shell casings from each pistol and put them in a manila envelope. Nothing further is done with the shell casings. No ballistic fingerprint is taken, no data is collected and, therefore, no data is or can be stored.

We capture every shell casing so that the distribution network does not have to distinguish between firearms legal for sale in Maryland and New York and those legal for sale in the rest of the country. This is done for two reasons: one, it is easier for our distributors and dealers to maintain inventory and to ship to all 50 states; and, two, it helps to avoid shipping the wrong firearm to Maryland and New York and subjecting an unsuspecting dealer to criminal charges for selling an illegal firearm.

If I recall correctly the anti gun crowd stated that the polygonal rifling of the Glock barrel makes it impossible to trace a weapon by bullet markings.

ballistic fingerprinting is a problem if you are going to use your glock in a crime, so what's the problem

Quoted: ballistic fingerprinting is a problem if you are going to use your glock in a crime, so what's the problem

There a couple of problems with this. most notably its a step away from gun registration. But more importantly, do you realize how much it would cost the taxpayers to implement a system where every gun in the US was "fingerprinted?" imagine the warehouses filled with little manila envelopes filled with 3 fired slugs and 3 fired casings. Then to know that the sytem is so flawed because it so easy to change a barrel on most weapons. Also, the ways that people can get around balistic fingerprinting. It would be a drain on the taxpayer and a step in the wrong direction as far as gun rights.

Quoted: Quoted: ballistic fingerprinting is a problem if you are going to use your glock in a crime, so what's the problem There a couple of problems with this. most notably its a step away from gun registration. But more importantly, do you realize how much it would cost the taxpayers to implement a system where every gun in the US was "fingerprinted?" imagine the warehouses filled with little manila envelopes filled with 3 fired slugs and 3 fired casings. Then to know that the sytem is so flawed because it so easy to change a barrel on most weapons. Also, the ways that people can get around balistic fingerprinting. It would be a drain on the taxpayer and a step in the wrong direction as far as gun rights.

The bottom line is that, like other "gun control" schemes, this simply will not work.  The ballistic "fingerprint" can change over the life of the firearm, even without any effort on the part of the owner to "circumvent" it.  In fact, the use of the term "fingerprint" related to this is pretty insidious in that it implies a level of exclusive uniqueness (a la human fingerprints) that simply does not exist in the world of "firearms and toolmarks."

Quoted: ballistic fingerprinting is a problem if you are going to use your glock in a crime, so what's the problem

Given your country of origin you should understand how flawed large gun registrations schemes can be. How much is the gun registry costing up your way now?

You should boycott them because of there crappy website! Where is the new firearms on glock.com Gaston!?

Quoted: You should boycott them because of there crappy website! Where is the new firearms on glock.com Gaston!?

True. Very true. I was looking for specs on the new 37 and couldn't even find a mention of it...

I'll boycott Glock after a majority of the idiots on this planet boycott air.

Sly

Quoted: ballistic fingerprinting is a problem if you are going to use your glock in a crime, so what's the problem

The problem is that it is a stupid scheme that is expensive, unwieldy and easily circumvented. Apart from that, it's just that it's useless. Normal gun wear will defeat it over time.

Next question?