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There Comes a Point When You Have to Address Your Failures

Connie du Toit has written an uncomfortable piece that reminds me, once again, that it took us decades to get to where we are, and stopping the slide isn’t something we can accomplish overnight, if we can even accomplish it at all. Excerpt:

(In a California prison,) There were about 3,000 prisoners and about 800 guards. That’s a 2.66 to 1 ratio.

With a 2.66 to 1 ratio the guards are unable to stop people from killing each other and they can’t keep out contraband (weapons, drugs, etc.).

If we can’t keep people from killing each other in prison and controlling drug trafficking in THERE, how in the fcuk do we think we’re going to control (it) out HERE?

Another example of cognitive dissonance, where reality doesn’t match the ideal. And, I am also reminded of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers exposition on “History and Moral Philosophy,” particularly when it comes to crime and “juvenile delinquency” leading to adult criminality. By the time a violent teen reaches adulthood, as Connie points out, they’re unrecoverable. There is no rehabilitation. The most we’ve been able to do is lock them away from the people they would otherwise victimze, and then watch them victimize each other.

Theodore Dalrymple’s City Journal piece The Frivolity of Evil illustrates the result of decades of consequenceless behavior in England – casual, thoughtless, evil behavior. This is the petri dish in which the occupants of that prison are cultured.

Connie’s first recommendation:

We are going to have to start killing people. We’re going to have to start getting serious about culling the damn herd.

Now I’m not talking about killing people indiscriminately or blowing up government buildings in a Timothy McVeigh action. If you think that’s what we need to do, here’s a suggestion: Find a high bridge and jump off of it. If you think we’re at the point where we start mowing down each other in the streets or blowing up government buildings, I don’t want to know you. I want you to be struck by lightening or have a heart attack or something. Just go away and don’t ever come back—and don’t visit my site again either.

What I mean about killing people is that when prison guards are watching one gang attack another person on the quad, I don’t want them to get out mace or water canons anymore. In prisons like the one in that documentary, full of hardcore life-time criminals, I want them to shoot them when they act up.

The idea that a prisoner doesn’t feel he has anything to risk by committing a crime in prison means we have to give them something to risk. Since the only thing we have left to take from them is their life, well guesses what Batman, it’s time to start shooting them.

Rough, but she’s right. Actions have to have consequences, and the only consequence left when what you have is the equivalent of a rabid human is to put the rabid human down.

But unless we address “the frivolity of evil” that generates rabid humans, we’re not going to fix anything. And I have no clue how to reverse that problem. Especially when the majority of people don’t want to look at the problem, much less address it.

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Quote of the Week

From Lileks:

Much sport has been had with this piece from the WaPo about the Red Sea. Short version: Three Beltway citizens loaded up their pouches with Elvish bread and headed out to find why people voted for Sauron.

Which tops, only barely, this one from the same paragraph:

Maybe I’m just in a warm happy mood, but I tend to side with those who cut Von Drehle much slack here – he’s a smart guy; he’s from the Big Empty and obviously has some affinity for it. What may seem to some like condescension or confusion strikes me as someone gently explaining to the Inner Party the curious songs of the proles, and why they sing in the first place.

James is a tenth-degree blackbelt in the martial art of verbal vivisection.

Why Ballistic Fingerprinting Doesn’t (and Won’t) Work

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…aside from the fact that calling it “gun DNA” doesn’t make it so.

Well, the news of Maryland’s Integrated Ballistics Identification System database being a failure has made the rounds of the blogosphere. Kim commented on Wedneday, so did Say Uncle (with an Instalanche). Triggerfinger, Keith Devens, and No Quarters, did too. The Geek with a .45 gives a link to the actual report in a PDF file (graphic, rather than text file, though,) and Irons in the Fire commented on that.

I’ve been pretty busy, but I had a chance to read the report yesterday, and it’s an interesting expansion on the other reports I’ve read. There are two from California’s ballistic imaging feasibility study, and the original Maryland study. All of these reports reference New York’s system, but I have yet to find a study of that system specifically.

The general consensus of all of the blog pieces was a sarcastic “big freaking surprise!” which is understandable given our stated biases. The response from the gun confiscation, er, control, um, SAFETY groups was a bit more muted. JoinTogether didn’t make a peep, as far as I could tell. No press release from the Brady Campaign. Ditto for the Violence Policy Center. But one thing that struck me, as immersed in this topic as I am, was this comment at Say Uncle:

I am fairly green, could you explain why the idea would not work.
I can see their problem of the guns not being indexed, but would it would seem that that could be solved by indexing all the guns.

Several respondents made a valiant effort to explain the problems inherent in the system, but a couple of paragraphs is insufficient. Like most controversial topics, there’s a whole lot of “there” there, and no simple two- or even ten-sentence response is enough. Sometimes I forget that a lot of people don’t have the basic information I’ve accumulated over the last ten years. (Generally not, though, which is one reason my posts – like this one – tend to the Den Bestian in length.)
So here, in some detail, is a dissertation on just some of the problems with the concept of “ballistic fingerprinting” as a crime-fighting tool.
First, let’s see what the gun confiscation, er, control, um, SAFETY groups have to say. The Brady Campaign has a web page on the promises of ballistic fingerprinting. I won’t quote the whole thing, but they do state the following:

When a gun is fired, identifying marks are made on the bullets and cartridge casings. Those marks, called ballistic fingerprints, are as unique as human fingerprints – no two firearms leave the same marks. The marks are also reproducible – every time a gun is fired it leaves identical marks. The uniqueness and reproducible qualities of ballistic fingerprints can provide a critical tool to law enforcement for solving gun crimes by rapidly identifying the specific weapon that was used in a crime.

That’s the basic idea they’re selling. The VPC says, surprisingly, nothing that I can find concerning ballistic fingerprinting – possibly because they outspokenly agitate for a handgun ban and may see ballistic fingerprinting as a step backward. The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has a web page on the topic, and a full report on the wonders of ballistic fingerprinting. Interestingly, both the Brady Campaign and the CSGV hang a lot of weight on how ballistic fingerprinting could have aided in the capture of Muhammed and Malvo in the D.C. Sniper killings. The CSGV says this:

In October 2002, the world watched helplessly as the Washington, D.C., area experienced a sudden rash of gun violence. Seven shootings, six of which were fatal, occurred in just two days in various D.C.-area suburbs. Investigators recovered bullets from some of the shootings and examined them under a microscope. Unique, microscopic markings indicated that the bullets had been fired from the same gun. A sniper was on the loose.

—

In retrospect, the microscopic markings on the bullets that police recovered early in the investigation provided strong evidence about the killers’ identities. Those markings, and similar markings left on cartridge cases that were recovered later, constituted a unique “ballistic fingerprint” of the specific gun the snipers used. If police could have identified the make, model and serial number of the snipers’ gun from its ballistic fingerprint, they could have used that information to access the existing crime gun trace system. That, in turn, would have led them directly to the Tacoma, Wash., gun store where the snipers had acquired the Bushmaster XM15 assault rifle they used to murder 10 people in the D.C. region while terrorizing millions more.Unfortunately, because there is no existing, comprehensive system linking ballistic fingerprints to the guns that produced them, the evidence police recovered so quickly could not help them identify the killers.

The Brady Center says much the same:

In the Maryland sniper shootings, police rapidly matched bullet fragments from each victim to prove that the same gun was used in all of the shootings. The technology to match bullets to firearms is known as “ballistic fingerprinting.” It worked and provided police with important crime leads. But what was missing, what police desperately needed, was a nationwide database of the ballistic fingerprint of every gun before it is sold so that police could determine not just that the bullets came from the same gun, but which specific gun – manufacturer, model, serial number – the bullets were fired from. That would have helped police trace the sniper after the very first victim.

Of course, it’s all the NRA’s fault that there’s no such database:

Because of opposition from the gun lobby and the National Rifle Association (NRA), efforts to expand ballistic fingerprinting to include all new guns have been blocked in Congress and state legislatures. Ballistic fingerprinting technology is proven and reliable. What is lacking is the political will for politicians to stand up to the gun lobby and establish a comprehensive ballistics database that would help law enforcement solve more gun crimes and catch more gun criminals.

Here’s the problem, though. What they say (and this is overwhelmingly true for these groups) is only partly (in this case, minimally) true. There’s a whole lot of information they neglect, gloss over, bury, and avoid.

Let’s look at what the current ballistic fingerprint (I’m going to abbreviate it BF from now on) databases are attempting. In Maryland’s and New York’s, all new handguns sold in these states must be provided from the manufacturer with one or two fired cartridge cases. When the gun is sold, those cases are forwarded to the proper ballistics lab along with the serial number, make and model of the handgun. Supposedly no direct information about the purchaser is included, but you can imagine how long that would actually last. The NRA’s primary objection to BF is that it’s backdoor gun registration.

Anyway, the cartridge cases are then entered into the BF database by being digitally imaged by a trained ballistics technician, and those images are linked to the make, model, caliber and serial number of the firearm. Then, if any spent casings are found at a crime scene, that recorded information will be available for comparison with the evidence collected. The BF database will be searched by a sophisticated program looking for a match. What does the software look for? Well, as the Brady Center explained, it looks for those “unique markings” – markings “as unique as human fingerprints.”

The only problem is, they’re not.

The first feasibility study done for the California legislature explained:

As bullets and cartridge cases are expelled from a firearm, microscopic markings are left on the bullets and the cartridge cases from the firing pin, ejector, barrel and other internal mechanisms of the firearm. These marks are unique to each firearm and are substantially reproduced each time the firearm is fired. The size, shape and location of these marks can be used to establish a smaller pool of firearms that share characteristics for comparison purposes. The individual nature of these marks can be used to conclusively identify a specific firearm as having fired a particular bullet or cartridge case. Ballistics imaging is often referred to as “ballistic fingerprinting” or “ballistic DNA.” Unlike DNA, which cannot be altered, some markings made by firearms may change over time with normal wear and tear of a firearm. Some preliminary studies suggest that some firearms marks may change rapidly during a “break-in” period of unknown length. Others state that marks on cartridge cases do not change, but that marks on bullets, especially lead bullets, do.

So, right off the bat you can see that the “uniqueness” isn’t so unique. Fingerprints, short of physical damage to the pad of a person’s finger, don’t change, but the markings produced on a cartridge case can – and from simple wear. Further, those changes may occur rapidly during the early use of the firearm, yet the baseline cartridge cases provided to the ballistics lab are one of if not the very first rounds fired from the gun.

But there are other problems as well. The technical evaluation portion explains:

When a cartridge is fired in a firearm, force of ignition will cause the firearm to leave various identifying marks on the cartridge case. These marks can be class, sub-class or individual characteristics. Class characteristics are features that indicate a restricted group source and result from design factors. Sub-class characteristics are features made during the course of manufacturing that further restrict the group source. On a fired cartridge case, sub-class characteristics can be mistaken for individual characteristics. Individual characteristics are those marks that serve to uniquely identify the cartridge case to only one gun. These marks can be made on different parts of the cartridge case by various parts of the firearm.

—

The firearm examiner can use any of these marks for identification; however, in most cases the areas used for identification are the following: breech face marks, firing pin impressions, extractor or chamber marks. For automated imaging, the only areas used for analysis are the firing pin impressions, breech face marks, and ejector marks. These are the marks that are typically repeatable and amenable to routine imaging. In most cases the firing pin may not leave sufficient detail for analysis and most examiners rely on the breech face marks.

That’s important to remember: the software that is going to search through the BF database is pretty much limited to firing pin impressions, breech face marks, and ejector marks. BUT, there are problems with even these marks:

The detail of these breech face impressions is dependent on cartridge chamber pressure and the type of breech face manufacture/condition. Lower pressure cartridges are not expected to consistently produce decent breech face impressions. Dirt or lead build up on the breech face can reduce the detail of breech face impressions.

No wear and tear involved, this is dependent strictly on the pressure generated by the ammo being fired and/or by how dirty the gun is. The cartridge cases provided to the ballistics lab are fired from a brand-new, pristinely clean gun. But what if the gun is dirty? And you can bet the ammunition used by a perp won’t be the same ammo used by the factory to provide the baseline cases.

Another variable in the production of breech face marks is the type of ammunition used. The detail left on a cartridge case is also dependent on the cartridge chamber pressure, bullet weight and the hardness of the primer. On some occasions, these can vary to such an extent that an examiner will not be able to identify test 1 to test 2 when different ammunition is used in the same gun. One of the cardinal rules in firearm examination is to test fire the gun with similiar ammunition as the evidence ammunition if at all possible.

But when you’re comparing to the baseline cartridge cases provided by the gun manufacturer, you don’t have that option. If a trained forensic ballistics technician can’t ID a case, what chance does a piece of software have? To give some idea of the variability, the report included this image of breechface marks on different manufacturer’s ammunition fired from the same gun:

Quite a difference, no?

Here’s the thing the gun confiscation, er, control, um, SAFETY groups skip right over in their gushing endorsement of BF: the use of ballistic matching in forensics isn’t a case of trying to match a cartridge case to an unknown firearm, it’s a case of matching a suspected crime gun to a crime scene. The cops will have a gun they suspect was used in a crime. A ballistics technician will take the gun, which is contemporary with the crime, and carefully fire several rounds through it, possibly with different lots and brands of ammunition. Then those fired cases will be compared by the software looking for possible matches, or “hits.” When the software finds a case or cases it determines are close, a technician will then do the final comparison manually.

The difference, once again, is that the gun is already in police hands, and that gun provides multiple cases from similar ammunition to that found at the crime scene. With Maryland’s and New York’s IBIS systems, what they’re trying to do is exactly backwards. All the ballistics technician has is one or more crime scene cases, and all he has to compare those cases to is an electronic database of two cases from each new handgun sold. The chance that the crime scene ammunition is of the same manufacture as the baseline is slim, and the same loading? Infinitesimal. For example, in 9mm alone, one of the most “popular” calibers used by criminals, Federal offers eleven different loads. Winchester offers twelve. Remington offers fourteen. Then there’s CCI/Speer, Fiocci, Wolf, Black Hills, and many others, not to mention military surplus, commercial reloads, and even handloads. Even if you have ammunition from the same manufacturer, different loads will leave different marks, as the report noted: “The detail left on a cartridge case is also dependent on the cartridge chamber pressure, bullet weight and the hardness of the primer.” Here’s an example of two 7.65 (.32 Auto) Sellier & Bellot cases from the same gun using two different lots of the same load:

S&B only makes one load for the .32 Auto, with a 73 grain full metal jacket projectile. Again, quite a difference, no? Do those look like “identical marks” that are “unique as human fingerprints”? And these two cartridges were fired from the same gun probably on the same day. What happens if there’s two or three years between the sample case and the crime scene case? The gun used in the crime could be new, or it could be twenty years old. The ballistics technician has no way of knowing, because he’s looking for the gun, not trying to tie a specific gun to a crime.

In addition, the cases from the suspect gun are being checked against a relatively small database of known crime scene evidence, not against a vast database of cases from every new handgun sold into circulation:

(S)ome firearms will reproduce (marks) well with sufficient detail, while some firearms will vary in their reproducibility depending on the cartridges used. Firing pins can be relatively smooth and nondescript. In such cases, these smooth firing pin marks can serve primarily as a class characteristic indicator. Even when they have gross features such as in the Bryco, these could be class or sub-class characteristics. An exception is the Glock firearm with its characteristic firing pin drag and aperture marks. This is one of the reasons that cartridge case examinations frequently involve the examination and comparison of other unique marks such as chamber marks, ejection port marks, ejector marks, and rimfire anvil marks. The impressions are not only dependent on the hardness of the primer, but also on how well the primer seats in the local cartridge case. In smaller databases these issues may not be significant, but with a large database using newly manufactured firearms, these differences can prove significant.

(Underlining in the original, other emphasis mine.) I won’t go into the technical specifics of this problem. If you want to know, read the report, Appendix A, but the concept shouldn’t be hard to grasp. Instead of searching for a nail in a haystack, you’re looking for a needle in a hay field. And with a million new handguns entering the market each year, that field just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Not to mention the 60+ million handguns already in circulation that aren’t in the database. Not as simple as the Brady Bunch makes it sound, is it?

But wait! There’s MORE!

The initial feasibility report spawned a later independent study report that expanded on the issues brought up. You see, the BATF was quite hurt by some of the statements made and took exception to the naysayers in California’s Department of Justice, so a follow-on study was done to answer the items the BATF objected to. That report was written by Dr. Jan De Kinder, Ballistics Section Head of the National Institute for Forensic Science, in the Department of Justice for Belgium. (I guess they really wanted an unbiased observer.) Dr. De Kinder was a little less enthusiastic about how “unique” those markings were, as he stated in his introduction:

A ballistic imaging database system is based on the following premise: When a gun is fired, it may leave distinguishing marks on the fired bullet and cartridge case. A searchable database with images of such marks from all guns sold could be a valuable investigative tool. Such a database would permit linking of evidence bullets or cartridge cases back to the gun that fired them. Evidence found at a shooting incident would be scanned and compared to all entries in the database. Ideally, the system would provide investigators with the serial number of the firearm. The serial number can lead the investigators to the registered owner. The database could be called a “ballistic fingerprinting” database. If created, California’s ballistic fingerprinting database would quickly grow to be very large. More than 100,000 fired cartridges from new pistols would be added to it annually.

Not as definitive as the Brady Center at all. Dr. De Kinder also explains how successful the initial tests were:

The AB1717 Evaluation was designed to test the performance of the IBIS™ system for the anticipated large database of new firearms. The experiment used 792 Smith & Wesson model 4006 semi-automatic pistols for this purpose. Each pistol was test fired using at least two cartridges of Federal brand ammunition and other ammunition. One of the test fired Federal cartridge cases for each of the pistols was registered into the database.

The duplicate Federal cartridge cases from fifty of these pistols were selected at random and compared with the database. The system ranks how well each entered mark matches the evidence. The higher the ranking the more similar the stored image is to the evidence’s mark. For the system to be successful, the correct gun should be listed in the top few ranks. The results show that 38 % of the fifty pistols were not listed in the top 15 ranks. The same experiments was repeated with ammunition of a different brands. In this case 62.5 % of the pistols were missed and not listed in the top 15 ranks. These results will be discussed in light of the investment in terms of equipment and personnel needed to set up a ballistic fingerprinting database. In fact, the trends in the obtained results show that the situation worsens as the number of firearms in the database is increased.

The supporters of a BF database insist that the “unique fingerprint” will work to allow an automated system to identify the serial number of a gun used in a crime, but in controlled laboratory experiments it does not. And bear in mind, the ammunition tested was all from the same lot of Federal .40S&W caliber cartridges. The sample database had only 792 firearms all of the same make and model. This is the most ideal condition. Read the entire report if you’re interested. (And if you’ve slogged this far down this dissertation, you must be interested!)

Now, I’ve discussed the problems involved in the BF database concerning only the ammunition used and normal wear, but what about alterations to the firearm, whether intentional or innocent? Dr. De Kinder stated:

Whereas the BATF sees altering a firearm as a non-issue, it is a real problem: Any reduction in the potential of ‘hits’ such as caused by alteration to a firearm is of concern when evaluating the usefulness from a technical point of view of a ‘gun sales database’.

It certainly would be if a BF database were known to be in use. Remember, the marks an automated system compares are the breechface, firing pin, and ejector marks. Does this bring anything to your attention? It should. Those marks are pretty much limited to semi-automatic handguns. Revolvers don’t leave ejector marks. In fact, unless a perp reloads his revolver and drops the empty brass, a revolver doesn’t leave cases at a crime scene at all – but revolvers are included in the database. So if you limit yourself to semi-auto handguns, how hard is it to change those marks?

Not hard at all. Take a Dremel tool and polish the breechface. Install a new firing pin. Grind just a little bit on the ejector with a stone or a file. If you want to get really creative, buy a new slide from Brownell’s or from Numrich. After all, the part of the gun that carries the serial number is the frame. The slide is just another part. But it’s the part that leaves the marks. If you’re a professional criminal, why not? Or just use an older gun that won’t be in the database. There’s millions of them.

And that brings up another question: How old are guns used in crime? The gun confiscation, er, control, um, SAFETY groups seem to imply that guns leave the gun shop and then are immediately used in a crime. Both the Brady Bunch and the CSGV cite the D.C. Sniper case as the ideal in which a BF database could have collared a criminal, leaving aside the facts:

A) The gun used was a rifle and not a handgun. (TWO million new rifles enter circulation annually, as opposed to only ONE million handguns.)

B) The evidence collected at the crime scenes wasn’t cartridge cases but projectiles, and the system doesn’t track projectiles. Muhammed and Malvo did their shooting from inside a vehicle. The cartridge cases went with them when they escaped the crime scene.

C) The condition of the projectiles recovered (mostly jacket fragments and bullet bases) was enough to verify that the same gun was used, and that’s about it. I’m pretty sure they did it more through metallurgical analysis than rifling marks. Certainly not enough of the bullets survived to have positively ID’d a firearm out of a huge database of firearms.

And, finally,

D) The gun was stolen, so even if they could have ID’d the weapon, all it would have told them was what gun shop it came from.

(Not exactly the whiz-bang tool it’s played up to be, is it?)

Dr. De Kinder discussed the firearm age question, known in the business as “time to crime”:

The time to crime (TTC) is an important parameter that can be used to reduce the size of the ballistic fingerprinting database. If this parameter drops down in a relatively short time period, the firearms which were sold long before the average TTC have a negligible chance of being used in crime. In other words, it allows one to minimize the retention time of the data in the ballistic fingerprinting database without losing a substantial amount of its performance.

In the Crime Gun Trace Reports 2000 from the ATF, average TTC are mentioned per age of the offender and type of firearm. The following results are obtained for semiautomatic pistols (4.5 years), revolvers (12.3 years), rifles (7.0 years), shotguns (7.6 years) and other firearms (7.1 years). The nationwide average TTC for all firearms for all ages of offenders is 6.1 years. As this study averages over the whole U.S.A., regional differences can be expected. The study particularly mentions Stockton, CA (9.2 years); San Jose, CA (9.0 years); Anaheim, Long Beach and Santa Ana (8.0 years) and Oakland, CA (8.0 years) as cities where the median time-to-crime is much longer than the overall city average. As all these cities lie within California, one can expect the average TTC for the State of California to be higher than the national value. More detailed data is required to determine correctly the median TTC for pistols in California.

It would appear, then, that guns fresh off the showroom floor don’t end up being used in a crime all that often.

So, let’s review.

I: The system is limited to new handguns.

II: The system is limited to two cartridge cases per handgun.

III: Those cases are fired from the gun when it is brand-new and immaculately clean.

IV: Pretty much only semi-automatic handguns are going to leave cartridge cases at crime scenes, so the inclusion of revolvers seems a moot point.

V: Wear and tear from normal use can affect the markings left on the cartridge case, and such wear may be significant during the “break-in” period.

VI: Very few guns used in crime are anywhere near new.

VII: How dirty the firearm is can also affect the markings left on the case.

VIII: The ammunition used will dramatically affect the markings left on the case.

VIX: The automated system is pretty much limited to comparing the breechface, firing pin, and ejector marks.

IX: These marks can be altered quite simply, by wear and tear, by normal maintenance, by dirt and crud, or with specific intent.

X: As the size of the database goes up, the ability of the automated system to get a “hit” goes down.

XI: The size of the database will grow dramatically each and every year.

XII: In initial testing using a tiny database of identical firearms and ammunition from one lot, the success rate of the automated comparison system was less than 66%. When different ammunition was used, the success rate fell to well below 50%.

If you didn’t know any of this initially, then I can understand why Say Uncle’s commenter wondered why the idea didn’t work. It seems so simple. It’s a fingerprint. It’s “Gun DNA.”

But it’s not. Just like the gun SAFETY groups aren’t what they say either. And here’s the final nail in the coffin, from the last report that inspired all that commentary:

The MD-IBIS Program has collected and imported 43,729 cartridge cases into the system as of 9/7/04. It has incurred 208 criminal investigations leading to six (6) “hits” or matches. It should be reiterated at this point that the IBIS system does not make the match. It provides a means of narrowing the field of search. The examination by a competent Firearms Examiner on a known versus questioned basis provides the actual conclusion of a match. The estimated cumulative cost of the MD-IBIS Program to date is $2,567,633. The cost per “hit” value is $427,939, or approximately $60 per gun sold. None of the “hits” has been used in a criminal trial, and five (5) of the six (6) did not work according to the manner in which the system was designed. It actually functioned in reverse. The gun was already present. Although these hits may be interpreted by some as being in line with the Mission of the DSP, the mission accomplishment and cost effectiveness of the Program has not been demonstrated. The MD-IBIS Program has not lead to the solution or expediency of an investigation that could not have been accomplished by other traditional sources.

—

(T)o further review and evaluate MD-IBIS, a series of blind proficiency tests were given. The tests were designed to test the ultimate purpose of the Program. The double-blind tests (unknown to examiners and supervisors) began in July 2003. The basic design of the tests were to emulate actual situations involving the finding of spent cartridge cases and submit them to the Forensic Sciences Division/Firearms Toolmarks Unit for examination. Guns known to be included in the MD-IBIS Database were test fired and the cartridge cases collected. These cartridge cases were submitted as evidence in bogus criminal cases. There have been four blind proficiency tests submitted to date. There were no “hits” associated with any of the submitted proficiency tests.

—

The bottom line of this report is that the MD-IBIS System has failed to demonstrate the bottom line of the 1st report. The MD-IBIS Program, for all its good intentions, has not proven to be a time-saving tool for the Firearms Examiner or an investigative enhancement to the criminal investigator. It has simply failed in the Mission and Vision concepts originally established for the Program. Fiscal resources for the MD-IBIS program would be well spent in other Forensic Sciences Division programs…

“It has simply failed in the Mission and Vision concepts originally established for the Program.”

So in addition to being useless, it has the extra added bonus of being expensive. The MD-IBIS report also notes that New York’s system has been equally successful (i.e., a complete failure) but it’s cost New York taxpayers over eight million dollars so far. According to this link, the price is nearly $16 million. It would appear that throwing more money at the problem doesn’t help.

So the reaction I expect? The philosophy cannot be wrong. Try it again, ONLY HARDER!!All four ballistic database reports are available here:

Feasibility of a California Ballistics Identification System

AB1717 report – Technical Evaluation: Feasibility of a Ballistics Imaging Database for All New Handgun Sales

Maryland State Police Forensics Division IBIS report

MD-IBIS Progress Report #2

The OC Shooter’s Page on Ballistic Fingerprinting – very comprehensive.

See also my earlier piece, Spin, Spin, Spin.

(Like this wasn’t long enough already…)

UPDATE, 1/19: This is probably the most linked and most viewed piece I’ve written to date. Thanks to everyone who has commented and pointed readers this way (though I’m surprised I haven’t seen a single hate-bomb out of the two thousand or so who’ve read this.) One commenter over at Chicago Boyz made an observation that I would have included in the body of this piece if it weren’t already so long:

I’ve long since concluded that the gun controlers don’t really expect measures like these to “work”, in the sense of lowering crime, or aiding the police. The inconvenience and cost to gun owners is what they’re aiming for. In the long run, if they can make gun ownership enough of a hassle, the number of gun owners in the next generation will decline, and perhaps we’ll lose enough political clout that they can get the outright ban they really want.

 But that’s not a motive they can openly admit, and still hope to get the programs enacted.

To which I replied:

Brett Bellmore hit the nail on the head – the purpose is not to build a useful tool for crimefighting, the purpose is to make it more difficult for individuals to aquire and keep firearms. The effort is, and the gun control groups state this implicitly, to reduce the number of guns, because they ALL blame “the number of guns” in circulation for the level of gun violence we have here.

 The British did a yeoman’s job of making gun ownership an onerous privilege to exercise, then used the rules under which that privilege is exercised to remove whole classes of firearms…

 From the law-abiding subjects. The criminals, however, still have access to pretty much anything they want.

 Note this passage from the second Maryland report:

The Vision of the MD-IBIS Program was to have it fully performing in three to five years. This was to include the amassing of some 30,000 database images per year. This projection fell and was embarrassingly overstating. The actual acquisition of cartridge case numbers was about 36% of the estimation. The main reason for this drop-off appears to be from the reduction of handgun sales in Maryland after the passage of the law.

Now, did those sales actually disappear, or did they go black-market? Did this law really reduce the influx of handguns into Maryland by nearly two-thirds, or did it make a whole bunch of Marylanders (choose to become) instant criminals?

UPDATE: As of 2015 Maryland scrapped their IBIS system.

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Holy S*)t! Or: Don’t Buy Powder From People You Don’t Know

I have, in the past, put up pictures of guns destroyed in “KABOOM!”s – incidents in which something went very wrong, usually involving handloaded ammunition. Well, here’s a piece I think all handloaders ought to read. It starts off

Handloaders are a thrifty bunch, on the whole, when it comes to our reloading components. We may spend multiplied hundreds of dollars on our equipment over a period of several years, but when it comes to the components of our ammo, while we demand excellence in quality, we are bargain-hunters at heart.

Let me state that I have yet to meet any group of people who are tighter tightwads than shooters. In this case, the savings of probably less than $100 cost a man a very nice, very accurate sporterized Mauser, and very well might have cost him his health or even his life.

Please read Bargain Powder Hazards.

Quote of the Week:

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Science may be the noblest endeavor of the human mind, but I believe (though I cannot prove) that the most crippling and dangerous kind of ignorance in the modern West is ignorance of economics, the way markets work, and the ways non-market allocation mechanisms are doomed to fail. Such economic ignorance is toxic, because it leads to insane politics and the empowerment of those whose rhetoric is altruist but whose true agenda is coercive control. – Eric S. Raymond

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I Will Not Register. Ever.

South Africa has apparently chosen to create a huge new population of criminals by revising their licensing and registration laws, reports the Cape Times earlier this month.

Gun licence chaos looms, say owners

Fatima Schroeder
January 06 2005 at 06:48AM

Firearms dealers say that there is no way the government can hope to re-register the millions of legal guns in the country in the four years from January 1 that it has given itself.

Adding to the load will be the thousands of new gun licence applications that will be made to the Central Firearms Registry this year.

Well, apparently not, as it appears that the overwhelming majority of new license applications are being denied.

Since Monday, the 2.8-million firearm owners across the country could apply to renew licences for their 4.5-million firearms.

The Firearms Control Act, implemented in July, makes it compulsory for applicants to have a training test to gain a proficiency certificate before applying for a competency certificate. People must have a competency certificate before they may apply for a licence.

More of those “common-sense” rules, right?

According to gun dealers, only one firearm licence has been issued in the past six months.

So much for the “thousands of new licenses.”

Of concern is that gun owners who do not have their licences renewed would be in possession of illegal firearms – a criminal offence.

Otherwise known as a “GOTCHA!” Disarm yourself or be a felon. No need for a door-to-door search. You know who was licensed, if they haven’t turned in their registered firearms, go lock ’em up!

Andrew Soutar, chairman of the South African Firearm Dealers Association, said that many gun dealers had gone into liquidation.

The Central Firearms Registry had processed 69,000 licence applications a year until March last year under the old laws, which entailed less complicated procedures, he said.

At this rate, he calculated that it would take about 65 years to renew licences.

A law that’s impossible to implement? That’s no reason not to do it! While you’re at it, let’s repeal gravity!

Responding to a request by the Cape Times, Pretoria police communications official Mohlabi Tlomatsana released figures that showed more than 10,000 licences had been issued between July and November last year.

Tlomatsana acknowledged that the figure included applications made before the new law came into force.

Asked how many of those licences had been approved under the new act, he responded five hours later, saying that processing the request was “time-consuming”.

Asked how many competency certificates had been issued in the last six months of last year, Tlomatsana said the question was “academic”.

Gun dealers claim the police are reluctant to give the figures sought by the Cape Times as only one licence has been issued under the new act.

Can’t imagine why they’d be closed-mouthed about it, then. Can you?

The South African Firearm Dealers Association completed a countrywide survey shortly before Christmas and 80 dealers responded saying they had not been informed of any licence approvals or issuing of competency certificates since the new law had been implemented.

The owner of Cavendish Guns, Dusty Millar, said applicants had battled to get firearm licences because the government had not put proper systems in place before implementing the law.

He said that because of the dearth of ranges and accredited trainers, applicants had struggled to obtain competency certificates in the six months after the law came into effect.

Millar said this was harming the firearm industry and six dealers in Cape Town had closed down since July 1.

“People are getting illegal firearms because it is more difficult to get a licence.”

Fr. Guido Sarducci’s Five Minute University course in Economics: “Supply and-a Demand. That’s it.” Supply always meets demand.

Osman Shaboodien, an instructor at Buccaneer Guns, shared Millar’s sentiments.

“I don’t think there’s one dealer who hasn’t suffered because of the new act. But it’s not all doom and gloom. It’s starting to look better purely because the training procedures are coming through.”

Right. AFTER a large number of dealers have been put out of business, and the law guarantees that thousands of people currently licensed will be unable to renew.

But “it’s starting to look better.” For a government that wants to disarm its citizens.

If, however, the handling of applications for new licences did not improve, many firearm dealers would have to close down, Shaboodien said.

In a letter to the Cape Times, the Democratic Alliance’s spokesperson on safety and security, Roy Jankielsohn, said the act could hit firearm owners and dealers as well as the tourism, film and private security industries.

Tlomatsana denied that only one approval had been issued under the new act, and said the procedures had been put in place.

The renewal deadlines are:

Those born between January1 and March 31 can apply during 2005;

Those born between April 1 and June 30 can apply during 2006;

Those born between July 1 and September 30 can apply during 2007; and

Those born between October 1 and December 31 can apply during 2008.

Meanwhile gun owners were responding positively to the 90-day firearms amnesty and had been handing guns in at police stations around the country, officials said.

While the police are not yet able to say what types of illegally held guns were being surrendered, they said people were taking advantage of the amnesty.

People with unlicensed firearms or ammunition can hand them in at any police station without fear of prosecution.

I’d LOVE to see a list of what gets turned in. The last time England tried it they got an anti-aircraft machinegun and some hand grenades.

Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula said the amnesty would run from January 1 to March 31, during which time the police would accept items brought in by people who no longer wished to be illegally in possession of them.

This particularly relates to people who have inherited or have been given firearms for which they do not have licences, people who may have kept ammunition after getting rid of a gun, or even security companies or other businesses that may have outdated equipment in their possession.

I will not license. I will not register. Period.

The ACLU Defines What is and What Isn’t A Fundamental Civil Liberty

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…and don’t you forget it!
 
Found via Clayton Cramer’s blog, Different River reports that the ACLU has decided to edit the First Amendment:

The ACLU is misquoting the Constitution, apparently in order to make a point that is actually false. They are claiming that “freedom of speech is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment,” when in fact it is the second. Here is what this page on the ACLU web site says, as of this moment:

It is probably no accident that freedom of speech is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Yeah, it “no accident” – it’s next door to a lie. See the ellipsis there? Those three little dots, indicating the ACLU deleted something they didn’t think was relevant? Wonder what’s in that spot in the actual First Amendment? What’s in there is the actual “first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment.” For comparison, here’s the actual First Amendment, complete without ellipses, from the website of the National Archives and Records Administration

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This is easily understood, though, as I found in this Reason Online interview of ACLU President Nadine Strossen. You see, the ACLU has taken it upon itself to define what is and what isn’t a freedom or a “fundamental civil liberty.” Here’s what Strossen had to say:

…our view has never been that civil liberties are necessarily coextensive with constitutional rights. Conversely, I guess the fact that something is mentioned in the Constitution doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a fundamental civil liberty.

See? Doesn’t that just clear it all up?

No Nuance Here

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Today’s MSNBC piece by Howard Fineman wherein he announces the death of the “American Mainstream Media Party” (“party” in the political sense) is one of the most concise and cogent explanations I have seen for what the news media has become, and I think his declaration that the party was founded by the action of Walter Cronkite “step(ing) from behind the podium of presumed objectivity to become an outright foe of the war in Vietnam” is absolutely true. In fact, I keep expecting Peter Jennings to stand up any night now and declare the “quagmire in Iraq” lost and unrecoverable, (I know, he does pretty much nightly, but I mean blatantly in an editorial statement as Cronkite did after Tet) fully expecting that his declaration will cause an immediate loss of national support and a subsequent withdrawal in shame. (But then again, perhaps he actually reads his Nielsen numbers.)

When I read this paragraph though, it reminded me of something from much earlier last year:

Texas Gov. George W. Bush arrived on the national scene in the 1990s intent on dictating the terms of dealing with the AMMP — or simply ignoring it altogether. Already well-known as the son of a president, he focused on raising money and holding private chit-chats with donors and political supporters who would journey to Austin for off-the-record talks. His guru was not an image-making man (as Ailes had been for Nixon, and Deaver with Reagan) but a direct-mail expert, Karl Rove. Rove and Bush decided that most forms of “exposure” offered by the AMMP would be likely to do more harm than good. So why bother unless they could completely dictate the terms of engagement?

Back in April, PressThink did a piece on Bush’s attitude towards the press, from which I excerpted this:

…a reporter says to the president: is it really true you don’t read us, don’t even watch the news? Bush confirms it.

And the reporter then said: Well, how do you then know, Mr. President, what the public is thinking? And Bush, without missing a beat said: You’re making a powerful assumption, young man. You’re assuming that you represent the public. I don’t accept that.

Which is a powerful statement. And if Bush believes it (a possibility not to be dismissed) then we must credit the president with an original idea, or the germ of one. Bush’s people have developed it into a thesis, which they explained to Auletta, who told it to co-host Brooke Gladstone:

That’s his attitude. And when you ask the Bush people to explain that attitude, what they say is: We don’t accept that you have a check and balance function. We think that you are in the game of “Gotcha.” Oh, you’re interested in headlines, and you’re interested in conflict. You’re not interested in having a serious discussion… and exploring things.

Further data point: The Bush Thesis. If Auletta’s reporting is on, then Bush and his advisors have their own press think, which they are trying out as policy. Reporters do not represent the interests of a broader public. They aren’t a pipeline to the people, because people see through the game of Gotcha. The press has forfeited, if it ever had, its quasi-official role in the checks and balances of government. Here the Bush Thesis is bold. It says: there is no such role– official or otherwise.

Fineman’s piece illustrates that, not only did the Bush campaign have that policy and execute it, it was correct (and successful). Rather and CBS attempted a major “Gotcha” and had their asses handed to them by the new media – a voice that even four years ago would probably have not been powerful enough to be heard. To Mapes and Rather it didn’t matter whether the story was true (though I’m certain they believe it yet) it only mattered that they would be believed, banking on CBS’s reputation as “the Tiffany Network.” But that credibility, previously only eroded, has now been completely washed away.

Regardless, the attack on Bush was, in the fevered imaginations of Burkett, Mapes, and Rather, “to represent the interests of a broader public.” It was to save us Red-Staters from ourselves by convincing enough of us not to vote for Bush. Bush and his advisors understood from the outset the adversarial nature of the press and did its best to neuter it. Open attack was all that was left to the American Mainstream Media Party as the election drew near. All their other teeth had been effectively pulled.

Glenn Reynolds corrects Fineman on an important point, though:

Political parties aren’t noted for their honesty or lack of bias, and when the media became a sort of political party (which it denied for years, but which is now so obvious that Fineman can pronounce its death) it became less honest, though it’s not clear that the press was ever as disinterested as it sometimes pretended. That’s why when Fineman writes, “Still, the notion of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press was, to me at least, worth holding onto,” I think he’s wrong.

The reality of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press would be worth holding onto — if it had ever existed.

To that I say, “Amen.”

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OK, Now Some GOOD Political Cartoons

Even some by apparent lefties. First up, from the normally leftward-leaning Steve Benson of the Arizona Republic:

Even Steve gets RatherGate.

And here’s the Las Vegas Review Journal‘s Jim Day’s take on the same subject from November 29:

Robert Arial of South Carolina’s The State is usually dependable. Here’s his commentary on the Ukranian election:

Chuck Asay of the Colorado Springs Gazette has a bit of a zinger for the global warming enthusiasts:

Joe Heller of the Green Bay Press Gazette illustrates the kind of “aid” going to Indonesia out of the oil-rich, Muslim Middle-East:


And I’ll conclude with four from my favorite political cartoonist, Mike Ramirez – the only good thing about the L.A. Times:

Art may be in the eye of the beholder, but I know what I like, and knee-jerk America-bashing isn’t it.

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But Rather Still Has a Job at 60 Minutes II

Color me shocked, but CBS has fired four people over RatherGate. Danno wasn’t one of them. Here’s my favorite quote from the story, though:

“The combination of a new 60 Minutes Wednesday management team, great deference given to a highly respected producer and the network’s news anchor, competitive pressures, and a zealous belief in the truth of the segment seem to have led many to disregard some fundamental journalistic principles,” the report said.

(Emphasis mine) Yet:

The timing of the story prompted charges of political bias against CBS News.

While the panel found that some actions taken by CBS News encouraged such suspicions, “the Panel cannot conclude that a political agenda at 60 Minutes Wednesday drove either the timing of the airing of the segment or its content.”

(Emphasis mine.)

Right. There’s a “zealous belief in the truth of the segment” by the producer and the anchor, and it comes out “during a tight and hotly contested presidential race,” yet the panel “cannot conclude” that the “zealous belief” pushing the story was “a political agenda.”

I’m surprised they found justification to fire anyone, then.

But, I have to admit, it was more than I expected.

UPDATE: I just heard on ABC radio news that the report “found no evidence” of a political agenda. That’s not what I read. “We cannot conclude” is not equivalent to “no evidence of.”

Further update: You’ve GOT to check out Ravenwood’s discovery. LOL funny.