Maryland is stopping a good program that identifies guns used in crimes

[X_Digger]

10. NY Scrapped their program as well. (COBIS solved one case, and cost $44,000,000.)

The thing about a 'ballistic fingerprint' is that unlike the fingerprints on our hands, 'ballistic fingerprints' change with use of the firearm and cleaning. Fire 500 rounds of ammunition in an afternoon through a handgun, and the 'fingerprint' will have changed.

They're completely destroyed by replacing the barrel on the gun (a 5 minute procedure for many guns), something that many gun owners do to increase precision or to reduce wear and tear (like changing tires on a car.)

Matching a casing to a gun works when you find a freshly used gun on a suspect, and you have casings recently fired from it to compare to. With any length of use between the first point and the second, the 'fingerprint' match becomes inconclusive. Imagine a 'tire fingerprint' on your car as it rolls off the lot, and compare to the 'tire fingerprint' after 30,000 miles-- or after you get a new set of tires from Pep Boys.

The whole CSI / NCIS / Law & Order slew of tv shows have given folks an unrealistic expectation for the science of criminal forensics.