By Larry Keane
Special to TGM
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.
Hold On, Just a Little More Science.
The determination by NIST officials, after reviewing the compendium of data examining microstamping, is that the existing studies show a microstamping cannot produce repeatable and legible codes. That’s for a couple reasons. Even the microstamping patent-holder, Todd Lizotte, got involved in the research that ultimately concluded that “…legitimate questions exist related to both the technical aspects, production costs, and database management associated with microstamping that should be addressed before wide scale implementation is legislatively mandated.”
Even though state-led studies in California and New Jersey promise that microstamping works, there are other independent studies that show it doesn’t. Reminder, these are states that want to require this unworkable technology that would burden firearm manufacturers not just with the technology costs but also the liability when it doesn’t work. The Association of Firearm and Tool Mark Examiners (AFTME) and the New York State Firearms Technical Working Group (TWG) observed that firing pins wear over time.
That makes sense. Firing pins striking metallic primers naturally wear over time. NIST noted that adding in the fact that firearms produce residue from gunpowder (as any recreational shooter can attest). That gunpowder residue can accumulate in the microscopic laser-engraved microstamp, obscuring the code.
That doesn’t take into account that different firing pins are used in different firearms. That variation of make and model, metallurgy and even lacquer coatings on ammunition can affect the ability of a legible code to be present on spent cartridges. On top of that, it doesn’t work at all in rimfire ammunition, since there’s an entirely different primer in the rim of the cartridge and not a separate primer. Manufacturers’ branding on the cartridge can affect legibility too.
How the firing pin strikes the primer can affect legibility too. Repeated strikes and drag marks can mar the microscopic microstamping code.
Gun control proponents claim this isn’t a big deal. Since partial license plates help investigators narrow down suspected vehicles involved in crimes, they claim a partial microstamp can do the same. But NSSF did the math on some of those claims too.
Impossible Math
In New Jersey’s microstamping study, an armorer fired 10 handguns on an indoor range. Ten of the 50 expended cartridge cases were designated for examination, including the first expended cartridge case, the fiftieth and the final eight from various intervals in between.
Only one of the 10 fired cartridge cases delivered a full gear and alphanumeric code resulting in a failure rate of 90 percent for the chosen sample. In the end, nine out of 10 rounds sampled omitted critical portions of either the gear code, alphanumeric code, or both.
If the result omitted a single digit, that would mean one would have to potentially trace 10 firearms and, in turn, 10 suspects. If an alphabetic character were to be omitted, that means there are 26 guns to trace. If one number and one letter are omitted, you are getting into big numbers to trace. At a minimum, 50 percent of an eight-character code with 36 combined objects results in 1.7 million unique combinations. And these were the results only after collecting 10 fired rounds.
Those results were good enough for New Jersey’s analysts to tell the state attorney general that microstamping is viable. NIST has a problem with this, though. The report to Congress states that there are large-scale independent (blind) studies and the existing studies are too limited to demonstrate microstamping viability. That’s caused forensic science organization to voice concerns inconsistent test performance in those limited studies.
Practical Problems
The NIST study also examined the obvious questions of what happens if a criminal replaces the firing pin or obliterates the laser-engraved code. After all, criminals already obliterate serial numbers stamped into firearm’s frame.
“No realistic mechanical mitigation strategy currently exists to address these modifications, and critics argue this vulnerability undermines the technology’s effectiveness as a crime-solving tool,” the report states. The NIST report also recognizes that microstamping critics view any requirement as a “de fact ban” on firearms that don’t have it. If that’s unbelievable, just look at the states banning the sale of certain semiautomatic handguns with a cruciform trigger bar. California’s Unsafe Handgun Roster slashed the available handguns by 50 percent.
There you have it. There’s a yawning gap of evidence that shows microstamping works. There’s significant evidence that the failure rates are entirely too high to have any value to criminal investigators.
It might be time for gun control politicians to put as much effort into actually locking up criminals as they do trying to show their gun control schemes work. Problem is … they won’t and they don’t.
Keane is senior vice president and general counsel at the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
