No Trace Of A Gun Study

By Elaine Shannon

Aides to Attorney General John Ashcroft have quietly sidetracked a White House--promised study of ballistics fingerprinting, a forensic technique hotly opposed by the gun lobby. Last October, during the Washington sniper shootings, presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer dismissed calls for a national ballistics fingerprint database that would link possible criminals to the unique markings left on spent bullets. But after critics accused the White House of being too beholden to the National Rifle Association, President Bush reversed course and ordered the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to conduct a scientific study of the technique, in which microscopic markings on bullets found at crime scenes are compared with stored test firings of thousands of new guns.

Six months later, the study hasn't even begun. ATF officials were about to get started when the agency was transferred by the Homeland Security reorganization from the Treasury Department to Justice. Aides to Ashcroft, a dependable ally of the pro-gun lobby, then raised concerns about a January 2003 California state government report suggesting that wear and tear may alter a gun's ballistic signature. ATF firearms experts challenged the California findings, but Ashcroft's advisers decided to take the White House study away from ATF and hand it to an outside, presumably more objective, agency. "We wanted to have an intensive, thorough, rigorous study of the issue," says Justice spokeswoman Barbara Comstock. "We said, 'Let's make sure we do it right.'"

Comstock says the National Institute of Justice, which hands out research grants, is looking for qualified scientists. But the project isn't listed among the research solicitations on the institute's website, and there's no indication when the study will be launched, much less finished. --By Elaine Shannon