Will Gun Control Take Out the Need For Ballistic Analysts Altogether?

            You hear about it everyday. Whether it is on the news or at your family barbeque: gun control laws. There are pros and cons and both sides can be fought to the death, but do we really know what is right?

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            In today’s society, politics is a touchy subject that we are always told to avoid when first meeting new people. Everyone you talk to will have their own views on politics, and this is one thing that will never change. But I’m not going to be focusing on who is on what side, if any side at all. I want to discuss how gun control laws positively and negatively affect the forensic field, especially ballistic fingerprinting.

            Imagine that you are a ballistic analyst. You get chosen to analyze fired bullets that have been found at the scene of the crime. Let’s say that it’s a homicide. Once the autopsy is completed, you receive the bullets recovered from the victim as well as the ones originally found on scene. You carefully analyze each bullet, use your comparison microscope to look at the bullets side by side, count the grooves, study the striations, and look for any other unique markings that could help identify the type of bullet. Once you figure out what type of bullet it is, you then begin to attempt to match the bullet to a gun. To complete this task, you use the comparison microscope and compare known bullets to your unknown piece of evidence. You continue to analyze, bullet by bullet, and you finally get a match! But you’re not done just yet. Yes, this will tell you what type of gun it was fired from, but how will that help you catch the suspect?

            Whenever someone legally purchases a gun, they have to have a background check done and the gun then has to be registered in that person’s name. This is on record, and law enforcement and authorities have access to this information. This is what every law-abiding citizen does when purchasing a firearm. However, do you think a criminal or someone who plans to commit a crime with a firearm goes through this process? Of course they don’t. They either steal the gun, or they buy it “under the table”. This causes a myriad of problems for you as the ballistic analyst. If the person who committed the crime isn’t registered, you’ll probably never know who truly did it, given the situation, case, and circumstances.

            As of right now, the government is considering banning guns and locking down on gun control. Well, this isn’t exactly the smartest decision. Why? Because criminals don’t abide by the law, and that’s why they’re criminals. They’ll continue to obtain firearms illegally and through the black market. This leaves the law-abiding citizens empty handed. It also leaves ballistics analysts left with absolutely nothing to work with because no one would be able to legally own firearms and how else are you going to be able to narrow down your suspects? It will end up being near impossible.

            I know that criminals will almost always be a problem, but taking away the right to bear arms from law-abiding citizens will not only lessen our safety, but it will make forensic scientists, particularly ballistic analysts, jobs much harder because there will be little to work with. And even though the suspect cannot always be found through the database and not every bullet can be identified or narrowed down to one gun, there are still many cases that have benefited from both the database and bullet identification and analysis. 

Don't know what gun control is? Go here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_control

From a ballistic analyst's point of view: prezi.com/rbe5ykqzixhp/ballistic-analyst-by-brogan/