N.J. attorney general OKs gun microstamping to aid investigations of gun crimes

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin has given microstamping — a ballistics identification technology meant to help cops nab people who use guns in crimes — his seal of approval.

Platkin issued a report Wednesday declaring firearm micrcostamping “viable,” a year and a half after state lawmakers passed a law that ordered gun dealers to sell microstamping-capable guns if Platkin certified the technology.

Examiners from his office used a Colt handgun to test the technology last August at a state police range in Hamilton and also assessed existing peer-reviewed studies, according to his office.

The technology uses lasers to engrave identifying marks, such as numbers, letters, or shapes, onto a gun’s firing pin. When the gun fires a round, the firing pin imprints the identifying marks on the cartridge case expended from the firearm, and forensic examiners can read the identifying marks to link a cartridge case to a gun’s particular make, model, and serial number. The technology is meant to help investigators identify a gun owner, even if the gun isn’t recovered.

Now that Platkin has certified the technology, gun makers can apply to join a state “microstamping roster.” Once an examiner from Platkin’s office approves a firearm for inclusion on that roster, gun retailers statewide will be required to stock at least one gun from the roster in their stores.

“This technology gives law enforcement an innovative tool to identify crime guns and bring perpetrators to justice,” Platkin said in a statement. “Now that we have certified that this technology is viable, we urge gun manufacturers to adopt microstamping technology in their production facilities and apply for placement on New Jersey’s microstamping-enabled firearms roster.”

New Jersey’s microstamping law was part of a raft of laws passed in the wake of several mass shootings nationally. Other measures included mandating firearm training for people seeking gun permits, banning .50 caliber weapons, creating a database of handgun ammunition sales, and allowing the attorney general to sue gun manufacturers as public nuisances.

Two states — New York and California — have laws requiring new handguns to have microstamping technology, which gun rights groups have decried as an expensive, unproven euphemism for gun control.

Scott Bach, executive director of the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, called it “a failed idea that has been thoroughly rejected by many states over the past few decades.”

“It can be easily thwarted by changing an inexpensive firearms part,” Bach told the New Jersey Monitor. “Its sole value is to politicians looking for an excuse to ban self-defense tools from law-abiding citizens, by declaring all conventional ammunition illegal and requiring a useless technology that no one actually makes and has no real crime-solving value.”