(2-17-2006) Citing the “Maryland success” in ballistic fingerprinting, gun sale restrictions are being expanded in New York and extended to Massachusetts, where State Representative David Linsky, Democrat of Natick, has introduced new legislation to ban sale of handguns for which the manufacturer has not given a shell case for the crime lab databases.
Last year at this time Maryland’s ballistic fingerprinting was on the ropes. Maintenance on the system software was defunded by the General Assembly, and the program which had cost millions of taxdollars had yet to solve its first crime in its six years of use. The established firearms organizations knew this was the time to strike, and invested considerable political effort into engineering the right conditions to favor passing repeal legislation. We all knew it would be impossible for gun grabbers to sustain this type of program in other states if Maryland was known to have abandoned it. We also knew it would be a matter of time until gun grabbers would intervene to save it. Prospects of driving a nail into the coffin of an entire form of gun restrictions nationally gave this priority.
As previously reported, a few loud individuals (who have since “declared war on the NRA”) decided it was more important for them to be able to argue for a carry reform bill whose outcome we already knew. They made for a circus environment on gun bills, even offering to accept an assault weapons ban in trade for a vote on the carry bill, and ultimately trashed any ability to win an achievable victory after legislators, unable to tell nuanced distinctions between the various gun groups, tarred us all with the same brush. As we feared, they triggered leadership’s decision to kill all gun bills. (As they have boasted: if they can’t pass a gun bill, nobody should pass a gun bill.)
This kept ballistic fingerprinting on life support, and it wasn’t long until it was resuscitated by the office of Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey, who boasted that the system had finally yielded a success. It hadn’t, as even a cursory check of the facts reveals, but that didn’t stop gun controllers from spreading the lie (funny how none of them are calling the press back after others exposed the truth.) Today, gun grabbers are advancing new restrictions in other states based on the lie, and even Maryland’s program is once again fully funded by the Ehrlich administration. Some brand handguns have been unlawful for Maryland sale for six years. The community’s failure last year not only means this ban will continue, but it ensures that gun owners across the nation will need to battle this form of gun control for years to come. The window of opportunity had opened – then shut.