The gun industry has mounted fierce opposition to “microstamping,” which could be used to provide police with instantaneous evidence linking a shell casing to the gun that fired it, says the New York Times. The technique uses laser technology to stamp a numeric code on casings. But microstamping has been swept up in the larger national debate over gun laws and Second Amendment rights, and efforts to require gun makers to use it have stalled across the nation.
“I think it is one of these things in law enforcement that would just take us from the Stone Age to the jet age in an instant,” said Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld III of the Baltimore Police Department. “I just can't comprehend the opposition to it.” But legislation proposed in several states to require manufacturers of semiautomatic weapons to use the technology has met with opposition from the gun industry and the National Rifle Association. They argue that microstamping is ineffective and its cost prohibitive. They say the proposed system would unfairly focus on legal gun owners when most crimes are committed with illegally obtained guns.