Canada decides criminals are the problem

Here's a lesson for those pushing for gun registries in this country - they don't work. Canada has found that out and the new Prime Minister has announced plans to scrap the long gun registry and instead spend the money on actually combatting street gangs causing problems in the large Canadian cities. Hmmmm...spending money effectively...fighting criminals instead of harassing law-abiding citizens...what a novel concept!

Now if only the U.S. proponents of a ballistic fingerprinting database would take a hint from our neighbors to the north and admit their efforts are futile. A ballistic fingerprinting database is useless, proven through use of actual databases in Maryland and New York which were unable to match a single bullet.

And, according to gun scholar John Lott, there are many factors rendering a database unrealistic.

An excerpt:

A recent study by the State of California points to further practical difficulties with ballistic fingerprinting. The study tested 790 pistols firing a total of 2,000 rounds. When the cartridges used with a particular gun came from the same manufacturer, computer matching failed 38 percent of the time. When the cartridges came from different manufacturers, the failure rate rose to 62 percent. And this study does not even begin to address problems caused by wear, so the real-world failure rate can be expected to be much higher. The California report warned that "firearms that generate markings on cartridge casings can change with use and can also be readily altered by the users." Further, it warned that the problems of matching would soar dramatically if more guns were included in the sample. The study's verdict: "Computer-matching systems do not provide conclusive results...potential candidates [for a match must] be manually reviewed."

Best advice? Let it go, gun control folks. Let's spend the money where it will do some good - combatting the actual criminals.