The Moronic Myths Of Microstamping

Microstamping has reared up as gun control schemers elevate it as a sophisticated means of "gun safety," a sly euphemism for gun control. Proponents of the unworkable, unreliable and ineffective concept keep their heads in the sand regarding the feasibility of microstamping mandates because they can't face the truth. It doesn't work.

Boondoggle Backstory

Microstamping is unproven and unworkable technology, using a laser to imprint a shallow unique identifying code on a handgun's firing pin, transferring the mark to a spent cartridge casing once it has fired. Gun control politicians push the "technology" to "reduce gun violence." In their minds, microstamping connects the dots on crime, a criminally misused firearm and the criminal. Except that's not realistic and forcing gun manufacturers to implement microstamping on new guns, or retrofit existing firearms, only limits lawful firearm ownership.

Todd Lizotte, who holds the patent for the sole-source microstamping technology, recognized this reality in a peer reviewed study. "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."

Third-party researchers agree. Forensic firearms examiner Professor George Kristova wrote, "Implementing this technology will be much more complicated than burning a serial number on a few parts and dropping them into firearms being manufactured." The University of California at Davis, hardly a gun rights redoubt, reported, "At the current time it is not recommended that a mandate for implementation of this technology be made."

A National Academy of Science study concluded that "the durability and survivability of markings on the bullet are still major concerns. Bullets would also be likely to suffer the corrosive effects of blood and other substances." An Iowa State University study stated that "legitimate questions exist related to the technical aspects, production costs and database management associated with microstamping that should be addressed before wide scale implementation is legislatively mandated."

That bottom line is microstamping doesn't work. Lizotte himself agreed that alphanumeric codes are often illegible under even perfect conditions. Electron microscopes couldn't detect legible codes in testing. Even under perfect conditions, it would take at least 10 spent cartridges make an "educated guess" to piece together a legible code. .....