California Police Get an Important New Crime-fighting Tool

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Griffin Dix, Ph.D.

Thanks to California’s 18 Brady/Million Mom March Chapters, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, California law enforcement leaders, our state legislators, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, more California criminals who use semiautomatic handguns will be identified and prosecuted. The most important anti-crime gun control bill in the U.S. in more than a decade just became California law.

California has an enormous and increasing problem of murders and other crimes committed with handguns. No arrest is made in almost half of California’s 2400 homicides per year, according to the state Dept. of Justice. That’s because police often lack the evidence they need. Over 60 percent of these murders are committed with handguns, mostly semiautomatics.

But this important new tool for California police will gradually help them solve more gun crimes. AB 1471, The Crime Gun Identification Act, authored by Assemblyman Mike Feuer, requires that new models of semiautomatic handguns sold in California after January 1, 2010, be manufactured utilizing "microstamping" technology which uses lasers to engrave microscopic numbers onto the firing pin and other parts of the handguns.

When these semiautomatic handguns are fired they will imprint tiny numbers onto the cartridge casings, which are often the only evidence found at crime scenes. Police will be able to scan these numbers, query the existing California database and quickly obtain important leads by identifying the semiautomatic handgun from which the casing was fired, and the name of the gun’s purchaser—an important lead even if the gun has changed hands.

Microstamping will also help police identify “straw purchasers” whose names will show up again and again if they illegally buy guns for criminals and gang members.

The police chiefs of virtually ever large city in California, totaling 65 chiefs, as well as five California police organizations such as the California Police Chiefs Association, Orange County Chiefs’ and Sheriffs’ Association and the Peace Officers Research Association of California all said they needed this new tool.

Microstamping will help police quickly begin an investigation even when witnesses are afraid to talk to police, and police have not recovered the gun.

Even though microstamping is no threat to law-abiding gun owners, the gun lobby mounted an intensive misinformation campaign.