.

Neal Knox Update
January 7, 2003

   The 108th Congress fired up this morning with swearing-in ceremonies, and will quickly recess for parties welcoming the newcomers.

   The first item of business, after extending jobless benefits, will be another extension of last year's funding to keep the government running, then permanent appropriations bills for the stalled appropriations bills for the fiscal year which began Oct. 1.

   There has been no public discussion of any gun-related legislation being attached to those funding measures, but I'll be surprised if Schumer, Feinstein, et al, don't come up with something.  It could be a first test for new Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

   Frist, a relative newcomer to the Senate, will have some much- needed help in managing that quirky body from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and just-dethroned Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who had a soft landing in the extremely important job of Rules Committee Chairman.

   

    California Attorney General Bill Lockyer -- a consistent advocate of any and all gun laws while in the legislature -- last fall rejected a "preliminary" report from his own Department of Justice rejecting computerized ballistic imaging, and announced he supported the scheme.

     Lockyer ordered another study, by ballistics expert Jan De Kinder.  I figured this still-unreleased report would be more to Lockyer's liking.  But according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation web page, it won't be.

     NSSF says "it appears that De Kinder came to the same conclusion as the previous report finding the technology unreliable and the database infeasible. The earlier report found that matching sample ballistics images failed 38% to 62%. The initial report also failed to address the inherent problems of normal wear associated with the high pressures and extreme heat of the metal-to-metal action of a firearm. The original DoJ report concluded that for a ballistic imaging database of all new firearms 'the number of candidate cases would be so large as to be impractical and will likely create logistic complications so great that they can not be effectively addressed.'"

     I wonder if Lockyer will bury that one, too.  In any event, I don't don't expect Sens. Feinstein and Boxer to be deterred from their enthusiasms for "ballistic fingerprinting."


     Speaking of "fingerprinting," CBS "60 Minutes" had an interesting report Sunday about the flaws in the long-established finger printing system.  They said there is no agreed-upon standard for what constitutes a positive identification, and pointed out that the FBI's computerized fingerprint system does not identify "matches," like we see in television dramas.

     That program identifies "possible matches," which must be examined by people -- just like the forensic markings identified by ballistic imaging of fired cases and bullets.  But unlike human fingerprints, those markings change with use and abuse.

     Former NRA Director and long-time gun rights activist Weldon Clark Jr., who is one of the leading gear-design engineers in the world, has been pushing the gun industry to produce five handguns in sequence, fire them, then randomly reassemble the parts and defy the BATF to identify which one fired which case or bullet.

 

     Virginia Citizens Defense League, a hard-working grassroots gun group which I happily support, reports that the Frederickburg Free Lance has graciously pulled the list of Concealed Handgun Permits from its web page -- after a barrage of letters from angry gunowners, some of which went to the newspaper's advertisers.

 

     Montgomery County, Maryland, Police announced last week that they are forming a new "task force" with state police, Secret Service and BATF to pursue tens of thousands of anonymous tips about people owning handguns, received during the search for the Beltway Sniper.

     The "task force" plans to determine which of those reputed gunowners may be prohibited from gun ownership by state or Federal law.

     The list, of almost 100,000 supposed handgun owners, was set aside during the sniper search because law enforcement was seeking someone with a rifle.

     "If, for instance, someone called to say, 'The guy next door has a couple handguns,' that did not apply," Michael Bouchard, special agent in charge of the Baltimore BATF office told the Washington Times.

     I can imagine the outcry if a state-county-Federal law enforcement task force were following up on anonymous tips that neighbors had some marijuana -- which, unlike guns -- is illegal for anyone to possess.

 
     With firearms offenses having doubled in England since the prohibition of handguns, multi-shot autoloaders, and other increased restrictions, the British Government has announced the next step -- a five-year mandatory sentence for possession of an illegally possessed gun.

     According to yesterday's "The Scotsman," one of the leaders of the gun-banning movement that sprung up after the Dunblane kindergarten massacre, said:  "To say that gun crime is on the increase after our campaign completely misses the point of what we were trying to do. We never thought that there would be any effect on illegal gun crime, because that is a totally separate issue."

     This time she told the truth, after the law has been enacted, and after a mandatory sentence for violating it has been announced.

     England has no mandatory sentence for misusing a gun -- which precisely identifies what the United Kingdom's government and this woman considers the greater evil:  possessing a gun, not using one in a crime.

-

     There will be a memorial service for NRA Past President and World War II Ace Joe Foss at 2 p.m. Thursday at the Scottsdale, Ariz., Baptist Church.

     Joe was a friend, even if we did often bang heads over the best course for the NRA.

     I'll never forget Joe telling NRA Director Bill Dailey and me about the ignorant passenger screener at Phoenix Sky Harbor, who, a couple of days before, had unbooted and unbelted him, and wanted to confiscate his "throwing star" -- the Congressional Medal of Honor pinned on him by Franklin Roosevelt.

     Joe, who had the medal because he was to make a speech in New England, pulled it out of his coat pocket.  Bill and I were honored to hold it, and to have known a true patriot.

 
This is the Firearms Coalition's Alerts list.  

http://www.nealknox.com/mailman/listinfo/fcalerts-list