- WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White
House does not support the push for firearms "ballistics fingerprinting"
that has grown from the Washington-area sniper shootings because of concerns
about the technology's accuracy, privacy issues and the belief that it
won't stop "depraved, sick people" from killing.
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- "New laws don't stop people like this," White
House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters Tuesday. "When it comes
to criminal behavior and people who use guns to commit murder, there's
no amount of laws that's going to stop these people from committing these
depraved crimes. The issue is the morality. The issue is their values."
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- A proposed House bill would require that the "fingerprinting"
of guns be kept in a national law enforcement database to aid in the hunt
of killers or people who fire a weapon in a violent crime. The database
would keep track of distinct markings that each gun leaves on a test-fired
bullet casing.
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- The goal of the program would be to help investigators
who find a shell casing at a crime scene track the bullet back to the gun
owner.
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- Rep. Jim Moran, D-Virginia, the co-sponsor of the bill,
said the only reason the White House opposes the measure is "because
the National Rifle Association is opposed to it."
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- "Why do they want to protect people who would be
shooting other people?" Moran said on CNN's "Inside Politics."
"You're never going to be checking out the bullet that was shot into
an animal for hunting purposes. This is only when people use weapons against
other human beings."
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- Of the proposal, Moran added, "It seems to me a
reasonable thing to do."
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- In the case of the sniper who has killed nine people
and wounded two others in the Washington area, Moran said the ballistics
fingerprinting database "would probably have helped us apprehend him
by now."
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- At the White House briefing, Fleischer said the technology
isn't up to speed. For instance, he said putting a nail file down the barrel
of the gun could alter the fingerprint.
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- "The more a gun is used, the less accurate the tracing
can become," Fleischer said.
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- He rejected criticism that the administration is in lock-step
with the NRA, citing Bush's support for an expansion of instant background
checks and raising the age of handgun ownership from 18 to 21.
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- "Not all of these positions are popular with the
NRA," Fleischer said. "The president took those positions because
he thinks they're the right thing to do."
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- Saying the ballistics fingerprint issue is not a "simple
matter," Fleischer said the president supports technology innovations
that have "helped solve crimes" and that there are a "variety
of technical issues involving the reliability and accuracy" of the
fingerprinting program "that bear looking into."
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- There are also major privacy issue concerns with the
technology.
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- "The president does believe that law-abiding citizens
have the right to bear arms," Fleischer said. "What we must do
is crack down on existing laws and enforce the laws that we have."
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