Gun-control logic fails

By Wayne LaPierre for USA TODAY

November 11, 2002

It takes little journalistic sweat to reel off another tired litany of sound bites that smear lawful gun owners as simple-minded obstructionists to whatever the anti-gun proposal du jour happens to be.

Why, despite their investigative resources, do media types rarely trouble themselves to evaluate firearm policy beyond, "Hey, that sounds good to me"?

Maybe because they'd miss a chance to coin a new hateful NRAcial slur. Like The New York Times ' repulsive affront that our proud organization "can always be counted on to provide a comfort zone for the perpetrators of gun violence in America."

Or maybe because they'd find that "gun-control" proposals always collapse under the gentlest burden of common sense.

For example, ballistic "fingerprinting" is a misleading misnomer. There's no such thing. It's a fairytale unrelated to the proven crime-solving tool of ballistic imaging, which we've always supported. Ballistic imaging can connect a bullet at a crime scene with the gun that fired it, within the limited circumstances of a specific investigation.

But no firearm has a permanent "fingerprint" or "DNA."

Ballistic abrasions change over time with normal use and can be easily altered, rendering any "fingerprint" database obsolete - which alone assumes that 80 million lawful gun owners line up to register their guns. And all criminals, too.

Even if a criminal were dumb enough to steal such a "fingerprinted" gun, he would be smart enough not to leave his name and his address.

That's why the NRA joins the Fraternal Order of Police in questioning such an immense and irrational diversion of taxpayer dollars and police manpower. But why isn't this obvious to thinking journalists?

Is their judgment suddenly impaired by the intoxicating promise of every new restrictive firearm policy?

Meanwhile, they ignore real news, such as the tragically instructive stories unfolding in England and Australia, where recently disarmed citizens are being terrorized by violent criminals at rates exceeding ours.

The NRA fiercely supports plans that get the bad guys without getting the good guys. To tell the difference, just ask yourself: Will criminals comply? Will it take police off the streets to do paperwork?

And when it doesn't work, what's next?

Wayne LaPierre is executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.

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