The thought of microstamping may be appearing in the Bay State with a push from the speaker of the House of Representatives Ron Mariano. Alongside Mariano is Todd Lizotte, who is a co-holder of not one, not two, not three, but FOUR patents with Orest Ohar, who is the CEO of BOLD Laser Automation. Lizotte is also involved with TacLabs Inc and PinRecon.
Rep Mariano pushed for “modernizing” the Mass gun laws back in early 2023. The Commonwealth ended up with one of the most aggressive Bruen response bills, which became law in the fall of 2024. The bill, which had several numbers, ended up being Chapter 135, “An Act Modernizing Firearm Laws”.
Some of the pro-gun folks may think that updating and modernizing the laws could be a good thing. Maybe it has some pro-gun tilt to it. Like allowing Bay Staters to buy GLOCK Gen 5s. Or updating the so-called “assault weapon” ban so someone could purchase a modern sporting rifle that most of the rest of the country can own. Don’t be ridiculous.
According to the law:
Section 148 of Chapter 135 – “(b) There is hereby established, pursuant to section 2A of chapter 4 of the General Laws, a special legislative commission to study and investigate emerging firearm technology.” According to the enacting language, the thirteen-member Commission is to focus heavily on “microstamping” technology.
A quick look at the link from the Mass Legislature website has a list of the politicians and others involved in the special legislative commission. There are a few Republicans, like Peter Durant and Donald Berthiaume, who did not support the bill which became Chapter 135, and one Democrat, Michael Moore, who has been good on the Second Amendment. Rounding off the good list is Jake McGuigan, from the NSSF.
The start of what became Chapter 135 has been covered here at News2A. The bill/law has been wrought with wrongdoing. Just to highlight a few things: Mass State Representative Michael Day, who was given the job to update the gun laws, was visited by Gabby Giffords, yes, THAT Gabby Giffords, in his Boston office. At one point, Rep Day didn’t even know what was in the bill (now law), which tells me that he didn’t write it. Or even read it. When the bill was signed by Governor Maura Healey, she waited 71 days to add an emergency preamble, which put the law into effect 21 days before it was supposed to.
Let’s talk about the nepotism that Mariano is giving Lizotte here. Lizotte is part of the commission to determine if microstamping should be done in Massachusetts. Since he has several patents with microstamping, it absolutely is a conflict of interest for him to be on this committee. I believe this is the definition of nepotism.
But not only is a friend of Mariano going to get this job microstamping, the process itself hasn’t worked in Maryland or California. Our friends to the south in Connecticut tried to pass microstamping back in 2009, but it failed there, too. What makes them think it will work in the state that has the highest crime rate in New England?
In 2015, according to AWR Hawkins and GOA:
According to The Baltimore Sun, the pursuit of ballistic fingerprinting had already cost Maryland taxpayers $2.4 million by 2004 and a total of $5 million by 2015. Yet, no crimes were ever solved via the ballistic fingerprint requirements. Moreover, “the computerized system designed to sort and match the images never worked as envisioned… [and] in 2007, the state stopped bothering to take the photographs [of casings], though hundreds of thousands more… kept piling up in the fallout shelter.”
Just last year in The Reload, Stephen Gutowski reported that California Attorney General, Rob Bonta, said:
“California’s commonsense gun safety laws save lives, and the Unsafe Handgun Act is no exception,” Bonta said in a statement. “Accidental shootings are preventable.”
So why are the anti-liberty politicians looking to do this? It’s a losing battle for them. It doesn’t work. It hasn’t resulted in finding one criminal. Naturally, it is not going to stop a crime either. There are even very easy ways to defeat microstamping. Buying sandpaper at Home Depot or Walmart and rubbing off the firing pin would get rid of the stamping. A criminal could possibly get shell casings from a shooting range and drop them at his/her crime scene. And simply replacing a firing pin would eliminate the stamping.
This committee is going to find that it isn’t practical for microstamping. It isn’t going to stop a crime or find a criminal. But with Mariano and Lizotte together, it will line their wallets.
