7 Years of Failure – But Give Us More Money!
If you had an employee with seven years of absolutely no results – and by no, I mean zero, none – what would you do?
So why, as taxpayers, are NY residents still paying to support a program that has failed for seven years? Isn’t this a state where they need to stop wasting money?
New York’s 7-year-old database of handgun “fingerprints” has yet to lead to a criminal prosecution, and questions linger about its effectiveness. Still, state police remain committed to the database, saying more time and a long-awaited link to a federal ballistics database could bring success.
Since March 2001, identifying information about more than 200,000 new pistols and revolvers sold in New York have been entered into the Combined Ballistic Identification System database maintained by state police. New York and Maryland are the only two states that maintain statewide databases.
New guns are test fired, and the minute markings the guns make on the shell casings are recorded and entered into the digital database.
Proponents say the markings are as unique as fingerprints and can be compared against shell casings found at crime scenes. The results as of August: 209,239 casings entered into New York’s database, 7,124 inquiries and two hits.
Both hits were several years ago and involve separate crimes in Rochester _ a drive-by shooting that resulted in an injury and an incident involving shots fired _ and neither resulted in a prosecution, according to state and Rochester city police.
Gun advocates, who have opposed the database from the get-go as unworkable, claim the lack of results is evidence of the system’s failure. They contend that a gun’s “fingerprints” can be changed easily by taking a file to the breech face. Tom King, president of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, said the state would be better served by spending the money for the database _ which police say costs about $1 million a year _ on more police.
“We don’t have to be throwing millions of dollars into a program that doesn’t work,” he said.
No obviously related posts.
Only very slightly related thought –
During WWII, the UK had ID cards for all occupants for much the same reasons promulgated today. After the war, a proposal to keep the IDs was defeated when it was pointed out that the only crime ever using the cards as evidence was – wait for it – forging ID cards.
That’s hilarious!
Gun advocates are so unreasonable–just because the thing has failed to produce one useful result for 7 years, they want to jump to the conclusion that it’s a failure.
What would it take, do you suppose, to be declared a failure in these peoples’ eyes? Seven years of zero isn’t enough, so what would be?
You know, if I lived in such a state, I’d lap the barrel, the bolt face, the extractor, the ejector, and the firing pin the moment I bought a gun just on principle, even though I never intend to commit even the most minor lawbreaking act involving a firearm.