Todd Sullivan wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

TS> /Huh!/ Bad 60 minutes!  What'cha gon', what'cha gon, what'cha gonna
TS> do, when Roy J. Tellason and I come for you?

TS>> As has been mentioned in here before, ballistic fingerprinting
TS>> can't work.

RJT> Agreed.  But as I was mentioning in my message to Vern,  it's not
RJT> whether it works or not that's the primary issue here.  It's whether
RJT> people _believe_ in it or not.

TS> Belief changes nothing, despite what various religious types would 
TS> say.

I disagree.  I think it's a *very* important factor in politics,  and
thereby in government.  What they can get away with depends a *lot* on what
people believe to be true...

TS> Everyone believed the Earth was flat, and that you could fall off 
TS> the edge.

Putting aside the bit about the edge,  for all practical purposes it _is_
flat.  It's not until you start traveling some nontrivial difference that
it matters at all.  And for most of recorded history the vast majority of
people lived their whole lives out and died within a fairly short distance
of where they were born.  So what difference did it make to them?

TS>> Change a barrel, replave a firing pin. swap out a receiver and you
TS>> have a totally "new" weapon, as far as the system is concerned.

RJT> Sure.  How easy are those parts to find?

TS> I have at least two mail-order catalogs within easy reach.

TS> Anyone care for the addresses to get one? 

Sure,  pass the info along.  I like catalogs...

TS> 

RJT> But this strikes me as something that we might see being pushed by
RJT> certain parties,  the fact that both MD and NY _require_ it being a
RJT> pretty good indicator of the nature of those parties.

TS> Like it would matter, once the sale is made.

RJT> I don't think it'll work either,  but I also don't think that we've
RJT> heard the last of this.

TS> Oh, I have no doubt of that, but I also have no doubt that it's
TS> going to be a bigger fiasco than the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

Probably.  But that still isn't going to stop them from trying to use it...

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