You can name virtually any issue, and I can predict with almost perfect accuracy how the letter-writers in Seattle will feel about the issue; all I need to know is how the PC enviro-nuts will vote, and that will be Seattle's dominant view.
The sniper shootings in Maryland have put the spotlight on the gun-grabber's new issue du jour: ballistic fingerprinting. Today's Seattle Timesletter page has four letters on the issue, the first three of which are all in favor of ballistic fingerprinting (and the first one is obviously an anti-gun extremist). I won't bother to rebut the first two, but the third needs a brief reply.
The NRA argument against ballistic fingerprinting is only a half to one-quarter truth. To say that a gun's cartridge and bullet will be altered by usage and cleaning, and not be useful in tracing, is like saying that we shouldn't use human fingerprints to solve crimes because they can be altered by deep scarring or burning, or be disguised with latex ("Shootings jump-start interest in gun control," News, Oct. 16).
If you alter the rifling on a gun barrel significantly, the gun will loose[sic] accuracy. Cleaning will only take some of the characteristics of a ballistic fingerprint away, but the overall fingerprint will still be there.
Most law-enforcement people are in favor of ballistic fingerprinting and most common-sense people don't think this is an infringement on their Second Amendment rights.
The NRA should stick to teaching gun-safety classes and educating their members about gun laws, and leave law enforcement to the people who have to deal with too many gun-violence crimes on a daily basis.
Since the writer brought up the link between ballistic fingerprinting and human fingerprinting, I assume that he would be all in favor of having a registry of everyone's fingerprints on file, since that is what the advocates of ballistic fingerprinting are pushing. Now, I might be wrong, but somehow I doubt that this is a view that any self-respecting lefty (or anyone with a shred of common sense) would espouse.
As to the swipe against the NRA, prehaps he should look at the obverse: the VPC and Brady campaign should stick to teaching anti-gun safety classes and educating their members about gun-control laws, and leave law-enforcement to the people who have to deal with too many gun-violence crimes on a daily basis. Again, I doubt that he'd buy into that view.
I'd love to see Kim DuToit rip this yo-yo a new one, but I don't believe that he'd waste his time on such a hopeless case.
posted on October 28, 2002 08:15 PM
