The idea behind microstamping is simple, if stupid. Each gun would stamp a unique identifier on each round fired. Then the police could use that to trace who shot the gun in the first place. The fact that anyone with an elementary knowledge of firearms can see all the ways this wouldn’t work was apparently lost on anti-gunners.
But what else is new?
Still, the idea continued to be perpetuated. This was going to change everything, you see.
Only, as the NSSF points out, it’s never gonna work.
The Commerce Department’s National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) sent a letter to Chairman Brian Babin (R-Texas) to tell the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology that there is no reliable evidence that gun control’s vaunted goal of requiring microstamping on every handgun sold at retail would actually work.
The science just doesn’t show that it’s ready for primetime. Much like other gun control fantasy ideas, this one just doesn’t work.
That’s what NSSF has been trying to tell gun control, state legislatures and Congress.
To be clear, NIST officials informed Chairman Babin that, “NIST has not conducted independent research in this area, nor does the agency currently have an active workstream on this topic.” Studying it in a real-world application, they explained, would require a significant investment of time and resources. What NIST officials did, though, was a deep dive into the studies that have already been conducted and synthesized the results.
The answer they came back with is that microstamping shows no evidence that it is reliable technology that can produce repeated and reliable legible alphanumeric or gear codes.
Here’s the most salient comment they could make. “There is significant disagreement regarding the viability of this technology.”
Bottom line is that it just doesn’t work.
To get the science behind what microstamping is, or is supposed to be, here’s a quick refresher. Microstamping requires a laser-engraved alphanumeric code (that’s a combination of letters and numbers) or a gear code (that could involve identifiable geometric shapes or dots) that impart a replicated reverse code on the primer of a cartridge. In theory, this code would be unique to every firearm’s firing pin and impart that unique code to the cartridge’s primer. When that spent cartridge is ejected — again in theory — the spent cartridge cases would aid in criminal investigations when they would be collected and examined by criminal investigators. The investigators, going with the theory, would be able to verify the code from the cartridges to a database of firing pin codes maintained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN).
Just like that, presto … criminal case solved.
Except that’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works.
It’s really not.
For one thing, if man makes it, man can break it. That’s just a simple universal law. We can screw up anything and be proud of ourselves most of the time when we do. That means even if you can trust the tech to work most of the time, it won’t always work.
But even if it does, the truth is that most criminals don’t buy guns themselves. They don’t walk into the store, ask to see a particular firearm, go through the whole NICS process, and then go to the local stop-and-rob. Instead, they deal in things like black market guns and straw purchases, where someone else bought the gun lawfully, then they obtain it after the fact.
Hypothetically, the straw buyer can pinpoint the actual shooter, but that’s not guaranteed. For theft victims, there’s even less chance of an arrest.
It’s why gun tracing has never solved a single crime in the history of the United States, so far as I’m aware. This is more of the same, really. They’re just hoping they can run the trace without a firearm being left at the scene.
And to keep pushing this even though everyone knows it won’t do what proponents claim should be sufficient for the Social Security Administration to decide you qualify for full disability. It won’t, but it should.
Plus, let’s be real, even in the best-case scenario, where the technology worked as advertised, it would only work if there were universal background checks and gun registration.
Like we’d just let that happen.
Please.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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