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...

NEWTOWN, Conn --(Ammoland.com)- On Friday evening, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the state budget into law immediately eliminating the Combined Ballistics Identification System (CoBIS), the state’s ineffective ballistic identification database. Just as important, the budget did not contain a microstamping provision sought by anti-gun legislators. This is a major victory for manufacturers, retailers and law-abiding firearms owners throughout New York. NSSF thanks the governor and Senate Republicans for protecting New Yorkers’ Second Amendment rights. The CoBIS was put in place in 2000 by then Gov. George Pataki. In the words of the New York Post today: “Trouble is, the...

New York gun owners finally have something to celebrate -- a rare double victory in the Empire State. The New York state budget was signed today by Governor Andrew Cuomo, and it eliminated CoBIS, the costly state ballistic identification database that wasted millions of taxpayer dollars while failing to solve a single crime. The final budget bill also struck a microstamping provision that had been included in an earlier Assembly version of the state budget. After the state Assembly passed microstamping earlier this session, the Senate Codes Committee moved S675C, by state Senator Jose Peralta (D-13), to the Senate Rules...

ALBANY, NY (01/22/2012)(readMedia)-- The New York State Rifle & Pistol Association applauds Governor Cuomo's proposal to scrap the Combined Ballistic Identification System (CoBIS). After collecting over 356,000 spent shell casings since March 2001 at an estimated cost of nearly $44 million, not a single crime has been solved because of the program. "By any rational measure, CoBIS has been a total failure," said NYSRPA President Tom King. "What is astounding is that there are actually elected officials defending it. Only in Albany would you find people who think that a program which has run for more than 10 years without...

ALBANY, NY (12/06/2011)(readMedia)-- In these difficult economic times Gov. Cuomo and the State Legislature are scrambling to deal with a current $350 million budget deficit that will rise to $3 - $3.5 billion next year. It is imperative that every dollar spent goes to proven programs. The New York State Rifle & Pistol Association has a suggestion for meeting this goal: abolish the Combined Ballistic Identification System (CoBIS). The CoBIS program was introduced by Gov. Pataki in 2001. Its stated purpose is to collect identifying data from the shell casings of all new handguns sold in the state. This information...

Presidents Report Ken Mathison. SCOPE President So far the Republican Party has given us a couple of Duds in their choices for competition against Hillary Clinton and Eliot Spitzer. Westchester DA Jeanine Pirro is the Party candidate of choice, so far, to challenge Hillary but she is at best Hillary Lite and some say she is just a Hillary clone. Her record is decidedly anti-gun, having supported Governor Pataki’s gun package in 2000 and she has recently publicly stated “the assault weapon ban should never been allowed to expire”. She also proudly proclaims her “Broad Blue Stripes” on other social...

Do bullets tell tales? By Nell Boyce The ballistics expert left no room for doubt. Testifying November 6 in the trial of accused sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad, he asserted that bullets from victims' bodies matched the rifle found in Muhammad's Chevrolet Caprice "to the exclusion of all other firearms." But the same day, in a Baltimore courtroom, ballistics itself was on trial. There, a federal judge agreed to examine the scientific foundations of bullet matching before deciding whether an expert's assertion of a "match" could be admitted in an upcoming murder trial. That hearing is just the most recent...