Ballistic fingerprinting
Oct. 17th, 2002 07:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
borislvinСпасибо 
Семе - дал познавательный линк
Пожалуй, даже сохраню на всякий случай.
Posted 12:03 PM by E. Rush Carskadden
Via Glenn, check out this link to Spinsanity taking Rep. Jim Moran (D, VA, District 8) to the mat on his statements about the opposition to ballistic fingerprinting (as quoted by Spinsanity):
"[The Bush administration is] opposed to [ballistic fingerprinting] because the National Rifle Association is opposed to it, but I don’t know what they fear for. Why do they want to protect people who would be shooting other people?"
Ok, here are the facts:
- Ballistic fingerprinting is really just registration. Registration is a first step to confiscation, and some would argue that it limits the effectiveness of firearms in defending against tyranny. This is a "slippery slope" argument, and I don't really like it. However, one must at least consider the possibility of creeping gun control, because the anti-defense movement so far has certainly engaged in incremental moves toward gun control, and many "gun control" organizations have been less than forthcoming in their goals. This is the argument that you will hear most frequently, which is really a shame.
- Ballistic information provided by the analysis of bullets and casings can be easily modified. When I say easy, we're talking only slightly more involved than filing a serial number off of a weapon. We're talking inserting a cleaning rod with a little too much gusto. Modifying the weapon in any number of common ways also makes the fingerprints useless. Let's compare it, for a moment, to the national identification system that was recently being discussed. Let us say that we could implement a national ID system, but the IDs could be completely falsified in an undetectable manner in under an hour, and for less than twenty dollars. Knowing that this system will not be helpful in tracking or stopping any criminal that has taken even the minimum of precautions, does it make sense to accept the burden anyway?
- It would not establish an effective link to a suspect. The majority of firearms involved in crimes do not legally belong to the person wielding them.
- A firearm's fingerprints change slightly every time it's fired. Eventually, the fingerprint is useless. Keep in mind that the vast majority of armed criminal activities are not conducted with a newly purchased weapon.
- Fingerprinting can only be implemented at manufacture time for new firearms, and there are, needless to say, more than a few firearms already out there (let's say roughly 200 million weapons). Getting all of them fingerprinted would be impossible.
- This idea is extremely expensive. Every one of the thousands of new firearms sold each year will have to be test fired, ballistic forensics specialists will have to analyze each bullet and casing (multiple bullets and casings per each weapon), and authorities will have to maintain a massive database of bullet and casing fingerprints. Guess who pays for this? You, taxpayer. How do you feel about an extra billion dollars worth of taxes for this system? That's a very low estimate, assuming (for the sake of argument) $5 per casing for analysis alone. The NRA estimates roughly $5,000 per casing. Add to that the cost of the computer system (Maryland paid $1.1 million for theirs, which only keeps track of handguns for MD alone), plus yearly operating costs.
- Shotguns don't leave ballitic fingerprints on the projectile. Some rifles are almost impossible to recover ballistic information from. Brass catchers - simple receptacles designed to collect casings, could effectively leave a crime scene free of ballistic information.
- The fingerprints of consecutively made firearms are often virtually identical, making any distinct one-to-one correlation, or one-to-many searching, extremely difficult and impractical.
- Ammunition is relatively expensive, so many gun owners reload their spent casings or purchase reloads. This destroys the effectiveness of casing fingerprinting. Casings for, let's say, .45 ACP can be reloaded up to 7 to 10 times.
- Many people want to talk about what ballistic fingerprinting could have done in Maryland to stop the sniper. Maryland currently requires ballistic fingerprinting of handguns. To my knowledge, it has never solved or prevented a single gun crime in Maryland.
- Though it may be possible to match a weapon to a crime, you still have to establish that any given person was using the gun at the time of the crime. Current implementations of ballistic fingerprinting require law enforcement to catch the suspect in possession of the weapon.
- Finally, let me make this clear yet again: Murderers do not care about gun control laws.
Семе - дал познавательный линк Пожалуй, даже сохраню на всякий случай.
Posted 12:03 PM by E. Rush Carskadden
Via Glenn, check out this link to Spinsanity taking Rep. Jim Moran (D, VA, District 8) to the mat on his statements about the opposition to ballistic fingerprinting (as quoted by Spinsanity):
"[The Bush administration is] opposed to [ballistic fingerprinting] because the National Rifle Association is opposed to it, but I don’t know what they fear for. Why do they want to protect people who would be shooting other people?"
Ok, here are the facts:
- Ballistic fingerprinting is really just registration. Registration is a first step to confiscation, and some would argue that it limits the effectiveness of firearms in defending against tyranny. This is a "slippery slope" argument, and I don't really like it. However, one must at least consider the possibility of creeping gun control, because the anti-defense movement so far has certainly engaged in incremental moves toward gun control, and many "gun control" organizations have been less than forthcoming in their goals. This is the argument that you will hear most frequently, which is really a shame.
- Ballistic information provided by the analysis of bullets and casings can be easily modified. When I say easy, we're talking only slightly more involved than filing a serial number off of a weapon. We're talking inserting a cleaning rod with a little too much gusto. Modifying the weapon in any number of common ways also makes the fingerprints useless. Let's compare it, for a moment, to the national identification system that was recently being discussed. Let us say that we could implement a national ID system, but the IDs could be completely falsified in an undetectable manner in under an hour, and for less than twenty dollars. Knowing that this system will not be helpful in tracking or stopping any criminal that has taken even the minimum of precautions, does it make sense to accept the burden anyway?
- It would not establish an effective link to a suspect. The majority of firearms involved in crimes do not legally belong to the person wielding them.
- A firearm's fingerprints change slightly every time it's fired. Eventually, the fingerprint is useless. Keep in mind that the vast majority of armed criminal activities are not conducted with a newly purchased weapon.
- Fingerprinting can only be implemented at manufacture time for new firearms, and there are, needless to say, more than a few firearms already out there (let's say roughly 200 million weapons). Getting all of them fingerprinted would be impossible.
- This idea is extremely expensive. Every one of the thousands of new firearms sold each year will have to be test fired, ballistic forensics specialists will have to analyze each bullet and casing (multiple bullets and casings per each weapon), and authorities will have to maintain a massive database of bullet and casing fingerprints. Guess who pays for this? You, taxpayer. How do you feel about an extra billion dollars worth of taxes for this system? That's a very low estimate, assuming (for the sake of argument) $5 per casing for analysis alone. The NRA estimates roughly $5,000 per casing. Add to that the cost of the computer system (Maryland paid $1.1 million for theirs, which only keeps track of handguns for MD alone), plus yearly operating costs.
- Shotguns don't leave ballitic fingerprints on the projectile. Some rifles are almost impossible to recover ballistic information from. Brass catchers - simple receptacles designed to collect casings, could effectively leave a crime scene free of ballistic information.
- The fingerprints of consecutively made firearms are often virtually identical, making any distinct one-to-one correlation, or one-to-many searching, extremely difficult and impractical.
- Ammunition is relatively expensive, so many gun owners reload their spent casings or purchase reloads. This destroys the effectiveness of casing fingerprinting. Casings for, let's say, .45 ACP can be reloaded up to 7 to 10 times.
- Many people want to talk about what ballistic fingerprinting could have done in Maryland to stop the sniper. Maryland currently requires ballistic fingerprinting of handguns. To my knowledge, it has never solved or prevented a single gun crime in Maryland.
- Though it may be possible to match a weapon to a crime, you still have to establish that any given person was using the gun at the time of the crime. Current implementations of ballistic fingerprinting require law enforcement to catch the suspect in possession of the weapon.
- Finally, let me make this clear yet again: Murderers do not care about gun control laws.
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Date: 2002-10-17 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-17 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-17 10:46 pm (UTC)Дело в том, что нарезное оружие оружие оставляет на пуле следы своей нарезки. Эта нарезка всегда уникальна, т.к. стволы не штампуются, а нарезаются индивидуально.
Проблемы здесь в том, что, в отличие от отпечатков пальцев, отпечатки ствола содержат меньше элементов, поэтому их труднее идентифицировать и труднее находить в базе. Кроме того, пуля сильно деформируется при ударе. Если распознавание отпечатков пальцев уже автоматизировано, то с пулями, насколько мне известно, дело обстоит много хуже.
Гладкоствольное оружие вообще не оставляет постоянных отпечатков.
Тем не менее то, что отпечатки нарезного оружия легко изменить, неправда. Можно совсем уничтожить нарезку, тогда ружъе будет стрелять плохо и недалеко.
Для того, чтобы не оставлять следа, обычно используется другой способ - патрон вставляется во втулку и выстреливается из оружия большего калибра. Например, пистолетный из ружья, тогда следов не остается.
В России, насколько я понимаю, есть идентификация легально принадлежащего гражданам оружия. Однако, большая часть его - гладкоствольная, а большая часть криминального оружия происходит из военных арсеналов без всякой идентификации.
no subject
Re:
Date: 2002-10-18 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Насколько я понял...
Date: 2002-10-18 03:55 am (UTC)Т.е. можно beyond reasonable doubt идентифицировать пули, выпущенные из одного ствола с небольшим интервалом, но вообще говоря то же самое неверно для пуль, отстрелянной сразу после изготовления и после нескольких лет эксплуатации и/или недостаточно бережного ухода.
Re: Насколько я понял...
Date: 2002-10-18 04:24 am (UTC)Впрочем, если дело будет рассматривать то же бюро присяжных, что и для O.J. Simpson'а, тогда конечно - не доказательство.
Там указана другая реальная проблема - 200 млн. стволов на руках, их действительно совершенно нереально заставить все отстрелять. В общем, идея мертвая.
Re: Насколько я понял...
Date: 2002-10-18 09:27 am (UTC)Насколько я могу представить - не надо. Вот если бы существовал метод, позволяющий из конечного результата(деформированой пули) восстановить полную картину отличий данного ствола от теоретического - то да, согласен, тогда бы пришлось. Если и не стереть, то очень серьезно модифицировать.
>Там указана другая реальная проблема - 200 млн. стволов на руках,
А вот это, как раз, не уверен, что реальная проблема. Интересный вопрос, но не зная оценки времени "жизни" ствола в криминальной среде на него вряд ли можно ответить.
Re: Насколько я понял...
Date: 2002-10-18 12:30 pm (UTC)Впрочем, они же и приводят способы обхода.
Если меры порчи нарезки приняты, то сделать экспертизу доказательной по-видимому, невозможно.
Но ведь задача состоит в том, чтобы сузить круг подозреваемых, пока снайпер не пойман, для этого 100% уверенность не требуется, но здесь получение отпечатков от всех находящихся на руках стволов необходимо.
Re: Насколько я понял...
Date: 2002-10-18 03:34 pm (UTC)Доказательства чего и кому? Если речь идет о том, что бы после поимки установить, по модифицированому оружию, его соотвецвие некоторой ранее сделаной серии выстрелов, то это как раз представляется наиболее возможным. Ведь оружие уже в руках экспертов, которые могут ставить неограниченое число нужных им экспериментов. Конечно, если порча нарезки была масштабной, то ничего у них не выйдет. Но и стрелять из столь масштабно испорченой винтовки не так удобно, наверное.
no subject
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,66007,00.html:
When cartridges from the same manufacturer were test-fired and compared, computer matching failed 38 percent of the time. With cartridges from different manufacturers, computer matching failed 62 percent of the time.