| October 15, 2002 09:08 PM ET |
By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Reacting to a deadly series of sniper killings in the Washington area, the White House on Tuesday asked federal law enforcement officials to determine whether "ballistic fingerprinting" technology would be an effective crime fighting tool.
The White House appeared to have a change of heart about the issue after hours earlier expressing doubts about the reliability of such technology and saying it could undermine rights of law abiding gun owners.
The system uses markings from bullets and shell casings like fingerprints to link specific handguns with gun crimes.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said White House domestic policy officials met with representatives of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. "We have asked the ATF to have their experts look into and explore the issues involved to determine if this would be an effective crime-fighting tool" McClellan said.
He said the officials were asked to look into the feasibility and technology, as well as law enforcement experiences in New York and Maryland, two states where ballistic fingerprinting progams are in place.
Earlier, the Bush administration had taken a more dismissive attitude. "New laws don't stop people like this," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said of the sniper, who has killed nine people in two weeks.
"What we must do is ... enforce the laws we have so that people who commit crimes, especially crimes with guns, will be fully prosecuted and serve time."
RIGHTS OF GUN OWNERS
Fleischer said ballistic markings can be easily altered, rendering the "fingerprints" useless. He also suggested a mandatory system of ballistics monitoring could violate the privacy of lawful gun owners.
"It's like saying, do you want to fingerprint every single American, or do you want to just have fingerprints for people who you believed were involved in a crime," Fleischer told reporters. "The president does believe that law-abiding citizens have the right to bear arms."
Gun control groups say the case of the sniper underscored the need for a national "ballistic fingerprinting" law, which would require firearms be test-fired before they were sold and their unique "fingerprints" entered into a computer database accessible to law enforcement agencies.
Although New York and Maryland already keep such records, gun control groups say a national law covering all firearms is needed to give police the tools they need to track shooters like the Washington-area's elusive sniper.
"If you ask any of the hundreds of investigators working to find the sniper, they would very much like to know where the gun first was sold and who first bought it. If we had a national ballistics fingerprinting system in place, they probably would have that information," said Matt Bennett, director of public affairs at Americans for Gun Safety.
Legislation has already been introduced in Congress to create a national system but supporters concede prospects for passage are slim.
The House of Representatives on Tuesday approved separate legislation that would give states incentives to improve databases used in gun background checks. The Senate has yet to act on the measure, which does not expand checks but makes them more accurate because states will supply more complete data.
