SACRAMENTO, California - August 25 - With the support of forty-one police chiefs from around the state, the state senate today passed a bill (22-18) that will help police solve gun crimes and catch gun traffickers  The bill, AB 352, requires that a new ballistics identification technology be required on all new semiautomatic handguns sold in California after 2008.

The new technology, microstamping, uses powerful lasers to make extremely precise, microscopic engravings on a handgun’s firing pin or inside the firing chamber.   These engravings reference the serial number of the handgun.  When a bullet is fired from the handgun, the marks are transferred to the bullet casing.  So when the police retrieve the bullet casing at a crime scene, they can quickly track down the legal owner of the handgun that fired it.

Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood) is the lead sponsor on the bill, with the Coalition to Stop Handgun Violence, the organizational sponsor.  A coalition of groups has been fighting to pass the bill since last year, including the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Legal Community Against Violence, Women Against Gun Violence, and the California Million Mom March Chapters along with their parent organization, the Brady Campaign.

Griffin Dix, the President of the California Million Mom March Chapters, stated, “Currently, no arrest is made in approximately 45 percent of all homicides in California because police lack the evidence they need.  This bill will help police solve crime by providing them with new and meaningful leads for solving handgun crimes.”

“On behalf of our law enforcement supporters and victims of crime we work with every day across the nation, I applaud the California State Senate for embracing this innovative technology.  I’m hoping the Governor will listen to a fellow Republican and sign this bill once it passes,” said Paul Helmke, the new President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.  Paul is a former three-term Republican Mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

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