I was under the impression that this was already in place. Governor Arnold signed
AB 352 into law back in 2007.
A few background notes on the whole microstamping initiative:
In California, the bill was introduced by assemblyman Paul Koretz of West Hollwood (who also tried to
impeach President Bush). The Coalition to Stop Handgun Violence (formerly the
National Coalition to Ban Handguns) also had their hand in the cookie jar. Money, as usual, was provided by the Joyce Foundation.
The State of Maryland ran a similar program called MD-IBIS. At the end of the trial, they
found that,
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(…) one year later, the Maryland State Police Forensic Sciences Division reversed course, citing “the failure of the MD-IBIS to provide any meaningful hits.” The report found that the program “has not met expectations and does not aid in the Mission statement of the Department of State Police.” It recommended that the data collection be suspended and that MD-IBIS staff be transferred to the DNA database unit. (…)
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The report concluded that MD-IBIS,
Quote:
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“had not proven to be a time saving tool for the firearms examiner or an investigative enhancement to the criminal investigator (…) it has simply failed in the mission and vision concepts originally established for the program.”
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Since its inception in 2001, the effort cost $2.6 million in taxpayer funds. In 2005, a bill was introduced to defund the initiative.
SAAMI
reported that the New York version of the program has failed to turn up a single useful hit, and that as of September 2008, it is hopelessly backlogged.