He sees promise in laser etching system
By James P. Sweeney
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
October 6, 2004

SACRAMENTO – For years, manufacturers have branded computer chips and airline parts with microscopic codes that identify each piece and protect against counterfeiting and theft.
 
The figures, etched with a laser and as small as the width of two human hairs, are nearly invisible to the naked eye but easily read with an electronic magnifying glass.

After a promising internal study, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has concluded the same high-tech tracking system could be a powerful new weapon against crime, particularly gun violence.

Lockyer wants to brand all handgun ammunition sold in the state. The ammunition and information about people who buy it would be electronically recorded with the same system now used for gun sales and stored in a database available to law enforcement.

Lockyer and his top firearms expert have briefed law enforcement leaders on the system and the Democratic attorney general is expected to introduce it at an anti-crime summit this week in Los Angeles.

The move figures to touch off the next big fight over gun-control in California, which already has some of the most stringent gun laws in the nation.

"Most of the guns used in crime – 80 percent – are handguns," said Randy Rossi, director of the firearms division at the state Department of Justice. "We want to see how well this works and give it a sunset. If it doesn't work, abandon it. But there is no reason in the world to believe it won't work."

The plan would require putting serial numbers on all handgun ammunition possessed in public, sold or imported into the state. To accommodate law-abiding sport shooters and those who reload their own cartridges, anyone on their way to or from a shooting range or hunting trip would be exempt. It's unclear how this provision would work, with supporters acknowledging that details on many aspects of the system need to be worked out.

The microstamping system under study was developed by a Washington state company, Ravensforge. The company engraves shell casings and bullets with a matching serial number. All of the cartridges in a box packaged for retail sale would have the same serial number, which could be scanned and linked to a purchaser's driver license number, Rossi said.

The state's more than 1,600 licensed firearms dealers already have the electronic equipment to record the information – scanning the code on the ammunition box and electronically swiping the driver license – in the same way they collect required personal information for gun transactions.

Rossi initially was skeptical that a bullet's number would be legible after it was fired.

A test of 200 rounds fired from close range into walls, car doors, bulletproof vests, rubber matting and a gel designed to simulate a human target convinced him the technology is sound.

Of 181 slugs recovered – including soft lead bullets that largely flattened out – the tiny code could be read on 180 of them with a simple electronic magnifying scope.

"We tried to prove this doesn't work," he said. "To have it work virtually every time, I was very surprised."

Lockyer seized on the system as an alternative to ballistics fingerprinting, which relies on unique, microscopic imperfections in shell casings and slugs. The attorney general angered gun-control advocates last year when his office concluded that ballistics imaging required a massive database and would prove ineffective unless launched as part of national system.

By tracking ammunition, which Rossi said has a relatively short shelf life, the state could develop a much broader database than an alternative that applies only to new handguns.

The attorney general's aides concede the microstamping proposal faces daunting political and financial obstacles. Manufacturers, gun-control and gun-rights activists – none of whom were involved in the initial study – are raising questions.

Gary Mehalik of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for manufacturers of ammunition and firearms, said the caliber of guns used in any test could have been a critical factor in the results.

The state tested 9 millimeter, .38, .40 and .45 caliber handguns. No .22 caliber weapons were used and microstamping has not yet been applied to .22 caliber ammunition, the most common used by sport shooters.

Rossi and Paul Curry, a lobbyist for Ravensforge, said the serial numbers could be applied for a penny or less per cartridge. But Mehalik predicted it would be expensive to add a manufacturing process that matches casings and bullets, and then packages them in a box with the same code number.

"We'd have to analyze the costs, but I can tell you that it would create a logistical nightmare inside the current production systems," Mehalik said.

A leading gun-rights group dismissed the proposal as an ill-conceived, high-tech version of gun registration.

"The technology is certainly there, but all of the technology can be defeated by anyone who wants to defeat it," said Sam Paredes of the 30,000-member Gun Owners of California.

Many gun owners make their own ammunition and reuse lead and shell casings, Paredes said.

"Gang members in South Central or East Los Angeles, they're going to know this ammunition is tainted," Paredes said. "So they're going to pay somebody a little bit of money to load some ammunition for them and they're clean."

But they won't be legal if caught with unmarked ammo in public, Rossi said.

"We could get some gang bangers who all of a sudden take an interest and study reloading . . . but I hardly think so," Rossi said. "These are the same people that won't even bother to put a glove on when they're committing a crime or put some mud on their license plate.

"This won't solve every crime, but it will solve a lot of crimes."