Senate considers ballistic fingerprinting bill

As the horror of last fall’s sniper shootings continues to haunt citizens across New England and the East Coast, the tragic killings have brought new attention to a state legislative bill that experts say, if passed, could prevent a similar situation from happening in Massachusetts.

Sponsored by Sen. Cheryl Jacques (D-Needham) and Rep. David Linsky (D-Natick), Senate Bill 1327, or the ‘ballistic fingerprinting’ bill, currently before the Mass. Public Safety Committee attempts to develop a statewide Ballistic Fingerprinting Databank in Massachusetts.

Molded after laws already in place in Maryland and New York, the legislation would require all gun makers shipping a firearm into Massachusetts for sale to accompany it with a test-fired bullet and shell casing, unique to each individual firearm. These bullets and casings, known as the ‘ballistic fingerprint,’ would then be sent to the state police, who would record them into a database, allowing investigators to match an individual bullet or casing at the scene of a crime with the gun’s owner and possible shooter.

‘We have an opportunity with this bill to do a lot of good,’ Linsky, a 14-year criminal prosecutor and former assistant district attorney in Middlesex County, said in testimony before the committee yesterday. ‘[We can] save lives, solve crimes and do much public good.’

Currently, Massachusetts has the lowest gun death rate of any state in the country 2.84 deaths per 100,000 people compared to the national average of 10.41 for every 100,000 people, according to a 2000 report put out by the Center for Disease Control. Jacques, also a former criminal prosecutor and chair of the Senate Post Audit and Oversight Committee, attributed this to the state’s toughest-in-the-nation gun control policy, passed in 1998.

‘It is no coincidence that Massachusetts has both the toughest gun safety law in the country and the lowest death rate of any state in America,’ Jacques said.

In the first year after the law was passed, accidental shootings involving children ages 0-19 went down by 80 percent and suicide with a firearm went down 20 percent, according to the Department of Public Health.

But not everyone was so convinced. Pro-gun activists, including the National Rifle Association, remain strongly opposed to a ballistic fingerprinting law, comparing it to gun registration, which they doggedly oppose. They argue that that such a system is easy to tamper with because bullets and shell casings can easily be altered, markings change slightly each time a gun is fired and guns used in crimes are often stolen all factors that could possibly lead to wrongful conviction.

‘It has been said that [ballistic fingerprinting] is the firearms’ DNA,’ said Rep. George Peterson (R-Worcester), who testified in opposition to the bill. ‘As we know, DNA cannot be changed. [Ballistic fingerprinting] can be altered in a matter of minutes.’

Peterson, who said the fingerprinting systems in New York and Maryland have had ‘no matches or hits’ as of December, cited a California Attorney General’s report from Jan. 29, which concluded ‘today’s technology is not advanced enough to handle such a system.’

But as Jacques later pointed out, the New York and Maryland laws were put into effect last year, not allowing enough time for their results to be efficiently analyzed. And Linsky argued that while he is aware there is no way for a fingerprinting system to be 100 percent foolproof, it is very close, and could still be viewed as ‘a successful law enforcement tool.’

‘Ballistics imaging is not a new idea,’ Jacques told the committee. ‘It has been used in our courtrooms [with ballistics experts] for decades to match a certain gun to a certain crime … In fact, our State Police already have a ballistics imaging database for crime scene evidence, which they use to identify cases where the same gun was used in more than one crime.’

In the case of the sniper, experts have said such a system, if it had been in place at the time, could have expedited the hunt, since for days, the only pieces of evidence available were bullet fragments.

Boston Police Commissioner Paul Evans has said he strongly favors legislation providing for a ballistic fingerprinting system in Massachusetts, calling it ‘a great law enforcement tool.’

But while Gov. Mitt Romney has said money would be ‘no object’ when it comes to homeland security, many opponents wonder exactly how the state could pay for such a program.

‘We don’t have the money to be implementing anything,’ said committee member Rep. Branford Hill (R-Essex County).

Jacques, however, contended the costs would revolve solely around personnel hiring and database expansion because the necessary computer technology already exists. Gun manufacturers would be the ones responsible for paying for the test bullets, she said, adding that Connecticut Rep. Michael Lawlor has proposed setting up a joint-fingerprinting database with Massachusetts in an attempt to minimize costs.

Connecticut is one of three other states, including California and New Jersey, which have proposed ballistics fingerprinting bills.

‘What’s the price that we put on the lives that could be saved?’ Linsky asked the committee.

Jacques said she was unsure how long it would take for the bill, originally proposed in 2000, to make it through the committee before proceeding to the House and Senate.