I was just thinking... maybe I should redact that... and send in a patent! Yeah, sell'in our rights away for a boat load of money.
I'm sure I've been beaten to it.
It would still be unreliable...
Here's a strip of jerky to gnaw on when a micro-serial number is "difficult" to read because of imperfections on the brass, wear on the imprint, poor/uneven "strike":
What do you think happens when they get:
"G17x941" where "x" is the character they cannot read...
Or they read "G" as "6"???
It's a good guess they aren't going to throw their hands in the air and say, "welp, we aren't 100% certain, so let's not bother doing anything with that..." Rather they will go "talk to" the owners of 10 guns... The burden of proof has now shifted to you despite ZERO involvement with the crime.
That's assuming that the case was there as a result of being fired rather than "seeded" by the perp.
Then there is the issue that the case will not trace back to the perp, but the last registered owner.
As others have said, the purpose of this is to stop sales of new guns, PERIOD. Everything else they say is a flat out lie. Like so many aspects of the gun debate these days.