Free Republic

With virtually no public notice or legislative debate, a centerpiece of ex-Gov. George Pataki’s controversial multimillion-dollar anti-gun-crime program was shot dead Friday by Gov. Cuomo’s new state budget. The budget killed off the so-called CoBis, or Combined Ballistics Identification System, which was rolled out with much fanfare by Pataki in 2000 in what was widely seen as an attempt by the politically ambitious Republican “moderate’’ to appeal to anti-gun Democrats nationally, possibly for a future presidential run. Pataki claimed CoBis would use state-of-the-art technology to establish a “DNA database for handguns’’ by requiring manufacturers of new semiautomatic pistols to file...

ALBANY, N.Y. -- A database designed to match handguns in New York state to crime scene evidence has not solved a crime more than three years after its debut. Pataki administration officials cite difficulties local police can face in getting crime scene evidence to Albany, where the database is housed. But state officials say they are close to solving the problem through a deal that would allow inquiries made around New York to piggyback on a federal ballistic network. Since March 2001, identifying information about each new pistol and revolver sold in New York has been entered into the Combined...

A killer is on the loose in the Washington area, and once again, gun haters are using the Beltway shootings as an excuse for more gun control. Ballistic fingerprinting will hardly ever solve a crime, but it will accomplish something else -- a gun registry tied to the owners of the guns. The latest weapon in the gun haters' arsenal is the registration of firearms. Specifically, they want to register the unique "ballistic fingerprint" that each firearm leaves on a bullet or cartridge case after it is fired, and trace it back to the original buyer of the gun. Ballistic...