Parker Calls on State To Adopt Microstamping as Crime-Fighting Tool

February 21, 2012 Brooklyn Eagle Staff
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BROOKLYN —  State Senator Kevin Parker (D-Flatbush/Kensington/East Flatbush), Senate Democrats and Assembly members, along with family members who have lost loved ones to gun violence, joined forces at the state Capitol to urge the state Senate to include microstamping in this year’s budget proposal.

Microstamping, which connects shell casings from crime scenes to the first purchaser of a weapon, would provide law enforcement with a critical tool to solve gun crimes. Microstamping has passed the Assembly several times, but so far the Senate has been unwilling to approve it.

In his executive budget proposal, Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed the repeal of a pistol and revolver ballistic identification database — known as CoBIS — creating a gap in the ability of law enforcement to link shell casings back to the gun that fired them.

“The elimination of CoBIS from the executive budget presents a gap in crime detection and crime prevention,” Parker explained. “The enactment of microstamping would bridge this gap and go a step further in protecting the safety and security of Brooklyn residents and all New Yorkers. This is not an anti-gun rights bill. This is a bill to assist our law enforcement officers in solving crimes,” said Parker, who is a co-sponsor on the Senate Bill S675-B.

Microstamping ensures that when a gun is fired, information identifying its make, model and serial number is stamped onto the ejected cartridge as a tiny alphanumeric code. Microstamped shell casings make it possible for law enforcement to trace and determine critical facts about the guns used in many unsolved crimes, even if the crime gun itself is never found.

Microstamping has the support of numerous law enforcement and municipal officials around the state, including more than 100 mayors and 80 police departments and law enforcement organizations.

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