Still Waiting for Gun Fingerprinting

Under pressure to distance the President from the National Rifle Association (NRA) during the Washington-area sniper spree, the White House announced in October 2002 that George Bush was ordering a study of ballistic fingerprinting, a forensic technique the NRA strongly opposes. Now, more than a year later, Ohio is being terrorized by a sniper. But the study is nowhere to be found, seemingly buried in the bureaucracy of the Justice Department. Justice officials did not respond to repeated inquiries from TIME about its status.

Ohio Republican Senator Mike DeWine has also been getting the silent treatment when he asks about the study. "I don't know what's taking so long," says DeWine. "I would like to see some results." DeWine, who believes that the technology to set up a national ballistic fingerprint database is already available, is co-sponsoring a bill with Wisconsin Democratic Senator Herb Kohl that would require gun manufacturers to fire a weapon before selling it, then keep the round's fingerprint signature on file for police. In the Ohio shooting spree and thousands of other cases, this kind of computerized database "would dramatically increase your odds of solving the crime quicker," says DeWine.

The NRA is against such a database, fearing it would be a first step toward a national gun registry, which the organization has long opposed. Critics also claim the technique is unreliable because wear and tear could alter a gun's ballistic signature—an issue the study is meant to resolve. DeWine, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, says if he does not get some news on the study from the Justice Department, he will have pointed questions ready for Attorney General John Ashcroft, a strong NRA backer, the next time he comes to testify.