Oct. 26, 2002

     With the DC sniper shootings of 2002 came the revitalized call for "ballistic fingerprinting" which, we were told, would have quickly brought a quick end to the shootings had it only been in place. Soon politicians and various "experts" were in the public's view, giving glowing reports of how such a massive undertaking would help prevent crime -- if not stop it dead in its tracks.

     Of course ballistic fingerprinting sounds very scientific. Hearing this phrase, one might think that, like human fingerprints, each gun has a unique barrel that can’t be duplicated or changed.

     That is not the case.

     For starters, modern guns are mass produced. Back in the 1700s, ballistic fingerprinting might have worked. Guns were hand-made and barrels might differ considerably from one gun to the next. But with machinery producing identical firearms, one after another, it isn’t too hard to imagine that the barrels produced consecutively would be very, very similar if not identical. That means you could easily have hundreds of guns that produce the very same ballistic fingerprint.

     Let me ask you something: Would you like for the police to go to the crime scene and then come to arrest you because you (as well as 799 others) had the fingerprint found at the scene of the crime. What would this prove? That all 800 of your should be tossed into jail?

     It gets worse. Because the standardization of modern guns means that their parts are easily exchanged or replaced. That’s right. A guy could purchase two guns and then switch the barrels, instantly making the serial numbers match the wrong guns. Imagine that a criminal could exchange his prints for yours and you have a feel for the fairness of things.

     Or a person might easily buy a new barrel and replace the one that had been given a ballistic fingerprint. Since barrels are an unregulated part that can be purchased by anyone without any sort of permit, it isn’t unreasonable to think this could go on in a big way (and there are huge inventories of barrels currently in circulation even if these were regulated by law in the future).

     Those unfamiliar with firearms might suppose exchanging barrels would be a major undertaking. It is not. A high school drop out with a wrench could do it on most rifles. And with most pistols (remembering that pistols are much,much more common in the commission of crimes), no tools of any sort are needed; when you take most modern semiauto handguns down for cleaning, the barrel slips right out and a new one is just as easily put in its place as the old one.

     Nothing could be simpler or quicker. It takes longer to change the oil in a car. Heck,it takes longer to bring water to a boil for a cup of tea.

     And as for obtaining the parts, I can order them from all sorts of catalogs or online without any questions asked and have them delivered right to my door (and you can bet that's what every Tom, Dick, and Harry Hoodlum will be doing should it looks like this law is about to be passed).

     Since the DC sniper is on every liberal's mind (as this is being written), it should be noted that for $125 he might have ordered a new barrel for the gun he allegedly used; in about 20 minutes, using only a shop vise and a common wrench, push punch, and a hammer, he could have that barrel exchanged and a new "ballistic fingerprint" in place. In about three minutes, with no tools, and for about $50, he could replace the bolt in his rifle, making new marks on the brass head. In short, a completely new ballistic fingerprint. No special skills needed.

     In fact this may have already happened. Police are scratching their heads because it appears that two rifles might have been used by the sniper. Or is it just one rifle with the barrel having been exchanged somewhere along the line? Who knows. That's the problem with ballistic fingerprinting.

     Imagine that criminals could change their fingerprints for $175 plus postage and you have a feel for how effective legislation dictating ballistic "fingerprinting" would be in regard to firearms that can easily have their barrels exchanged.

     It gets worse; the ballistic fingerprint of any firearm can easily be changed even more cheaply and quickly. The simple expedient of dipping a cartridge at the bullet end into oil and then into fine sand, chambering the round immediately, and firing it would cause scratches in the barrel that would instantly change the "fingerprint" of the gun. This would work with any gun, be it revolver, rifle, or Uncle Eddy's old antique over the fireplace.

     Now imagine that a criminal could change his fingerprints for 25 cents and can see how effective a system of collecting ballistic fingerprints would be. The same trick could be done to the bolt face, the extractor, and other parts that create "ballistic fingerprints" on the brass. While criminals aren’t always the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree, you can bet that these simple techniques, conducted with a file available for a couple of bucks at the local hardware store, would be employed should our nation ever be foolish enough to go all out for ballistic fingerprinting.

     There's one more trick that can be pulled for faking ballistic fingerprints. And this is perhaps the most diabolical of all. And also quite easily done. A criminal could simply go to a shooting range after it has closed, dig out a few intact full metal jacket bullets from the bank behind the targets, and then reload one of these bore-marked bullets into a plastic sabot. Here's the kicker: The plastic sabot allows the smaller bullet it contains to be fired from a larger bored gun; the rifling of that larger bore doesn't mark the bullet when it is fired for the second time. Instead the bullet will carry only the ballistic markings from the first barrel it was fired from. That's right, a criminal could shoot a victim and the rifling on the bullet would seem to prove it had been fired from another gun.

     Doing this little trick is not all that hard, provided the correct calibers are chosen. In the case of the DC Sniper, he might have loaded a .223 Remington bullet into a plastic sabot pulled with a pair of pliers from a commercial .308 Winchester or .30-06 cartridge. The sabot and the bullet plucked from the shooting range could then be reinserted into the cartridge with a standard reloading press (available at most gun stores or easily ordered, no questions asked). The end result would be that he would fire a bullet from a .308 Winchester or .30-06 gun instead of the .223Remington that the bullet would appear to have come from. The police would most likely be looking after not only the wrong gun, but even the wrong caliber of weapon.

     To get the fingerprint equivalent of this, we would have to suppose that a criminal could break into a home, commit a murder, and leave your fingerprints behind as clues. Crazy? Yet that is exactly the situation we could have if the police ever treated ballistic fingerprinting as an absolute way to link a specific bullet with a gun, and a criminal fired a bullet from your gun, fired from his a second time using a sabot.

     If this weren't enough, ordinary wear and tear will change the rifling of a barrel over time. This happens even if a shooter does nothing but employ his firearm for target practice on a regular basis, since each bullet traveling down the bore produces a tiny bit of alteration -- as does the cleaning of the barrel. So now we also have a ballistic fingerprint that changes over time. Ballistic fingerprinting is being sold to the public as an easy way to match a rifle to the bullet fired from it. But in reality, any given bullet could be quite different from what the authorities have in their records as the "ballistic fingerprint" if the owner simply shoots and cleans his firearm on a regular basis.

     Imagine everyone's fingerprint changing over the course of four or five years to get this picture. Fingerprinting would be almost useless. And that's exactly what ballistic fingerprinting would be. Almost useless for anything other than perhaps for determining a likelihood that one gun might have been used for several recent crimes. But beyond that and things start to get doubtful.

     This then begs the question: Why would a congressmen, liberal talk show hosts, and others advocate ballistic fingerprinting?

     One can only conclude that they are amazingly ignorant, that hate gun owners and therefore want to cause them grief through more regulations, or that they are simply grandstanding before the TV cameras with an upcoming election.

     Or perhaps all of the above.

     One thing is for sure: Anyone that says fingerprinting firearms will help solve crimes is either incredibly stupid or a compulsive liar, as nearly as I can tell. They certainly haven't put in any serious thought on the subject if they really believe what they say.

     And they certainly must believe American voters and viewers are fools if they think we will believe such lies.

     I certainly don't think such a person deserves anyone's vote or merits being taken seriously in our public forums. In the meantime, criminals must be getting a good chuckle at all the gullible hicks who think ballistic fingerprinting is going to end crime.

Now available: All-new, 2nd Edition of AR-15/M16 Sourcebook by Duncan Long Carefully researched, newly revised edition covers history, military and custom spinoffs, grenade-launchers, SAW versions, and accessories of this popular firearm. If you own an AR-15 or want to know more about this amazing weapon you need this book. Available from Paladin Press.

     The author wants to thank his good friend Jack Chisholm for the ideas that lead to "The Myth of Ballistic Fingerprints." Good ideas and good friendships are hard to find, and Jack supplies both.

     Duncan Long is an internationally recognized firearms expert. You can read more of his articles (or see other of his creations) at the following links: