Maryland Scraps Firearms “Ballistic Fingerprinting” Effort, Admits It Was a Complete Waste of Time

By Nick Leghorn

The idea that every cartridge fired from a gun should later be traced uniquely and specifically back to the owner is an appealing one. Every week you see it happen on CSI: Miami — one casing left at a crime scene is analyzed and leads back to someone’s “registered” handgun — but the realities of matching the semi-unique markings left on the cartridge case to a specific firearm are mindbogglingly complex. That’s a hard reality that the state of Maryland has has finally fessed up to as they finally admitted that their multi-million dollar “firearm fingerprinting” system had become an expensive, useless waste of taxpayer dollars . . .

From the Baltimore Sun:

Since 2000, the state required that gun manufacturers fire every handgun to be sold here and send the spent bullet casing to authorities. The idea was to build a database of “ballistic fingerprints” to help solve future crimes.

But the system — plagued by technological problems — never solved a single case.

[…]

In a old fallout shelter beneath Maryland State Police headquarters in Pikesville, the state has amassed more than 300,000 bullet casings, one from each new handgun sold here since the law took effect. They fill three …Read the Rest

Source:: Truth About Guns