Legislators Submit Bill To Repeal Ballistics Law (Maryland, including 2 dems)

The Washington Post ^ | January 22, 2005 | David Snyder

[neverdem]

Maryland lawmakers yesterday submitted a measure to repeal a state law requiring state police to collect ballistics information on every handgun sold in the state.

The bill -- sponsored by Dels. Joan Cadden (D-Anne Arundel), Norman H. Conway (D-Wicomico) and Michael D. Smigiel Sr. (R-Cecil) -- would nullify a landmark measure passed in 2000 that requires handgun manufacturers to test-fire all handguns sold in Maryland and send the spent shell casings to the state police. The police file the shell's ballistics markings in a database, which officers can use to match shell casings found at crime scenes.

Maryland and New York are the only states with ballistics "fingerprinting" laws, which gun-control advocates and some law enforcement officials have hailed as a potentially effective crime-fighting tool.

A recent Maryland State Police report, however, said the program is expensive and ineffective and recommended that the law be repealed. Gun-control advocates have disagreed, saying the system needs more time to work.

"The state police have indicated it's not working," said Smigiel, who filed a similar bill last year that died in committee. "We're wasting a couple million dollars which we could be putting to better use."

[neverdem]

That's the extent of the story about repealing a useless law for gun registration.

[dirtboy]

Gun-control advocates have disagreed, saying the system needs more time to work.

Gun control advocates do not measure the effectiveness of a gun law by the impact it has on fighting crime. They measure effectiveness by how many more guns end up with actual or de facto government registrations - thereby making them easier to confiscate in some gun-control utopian future.

[Still Thinking]

Gee, are these guys getting smarter? An anti-rights law fails to work as expected and they realize the solution is to take it off the books, rather than to further tighten the screws by enacting ever more extreme iterations of the law that didn't work?? Will wonders never cease? Someone check the Hades weather forecast!

[rellimpank]

--if repeal occurs, I will have to alter a long-held view that no state legislature ever does anything worthwhile--

[Emmett McCarthy]

Now, if only The Peoples' Republic of Maryland can be brought out of their darkness and pass CCW "shall issue" laws, it would make my twice-yearly visits there less of a hassle.

[Allosaurs_r_us]

Amazing! A step in favor of the Second Ammendment. I'll believe it when I see it. Still has to get by the gun control freaks.

[TYVets]

"--if repeal occurs, I will have to alter a long-held view that no state legislature ever does anything worthwhile--"

A classic statement.

Agreed it is a very very rare happening.

[ko_kyi]

I don't know if Hell froze over, but Montgomery County did this weekend.

Coincidence?

[Still Thinking]

Isn't Montgomery County the political jurisdiction in which Hell is located? ;-)

[GSlob]

The article you posted has a beautiful title. I'd expect MD legislature, building on its successes, propose abolition of 2nd law of thermodynamics, the change of seasons (no more snowstorms!) and, say, the law of gravity (this last measure specifically designed to improve the gas mileage of all cars in Maryland).

[Still Thinking]

Nah, repealing gravity won't help the gas mileage of all cars in Maryland, because there will BE no cars in Maryland (except for those residents who had the foresight to tie their cars, and themselves to the ground the night before enactment). ;-)

[ko_kyi]

I thought Hell used to be DC but moved to PG county.