VERN HUMPHREY wrote in a message to ROY J. TELLASON:

RJT>Anybody else catch this nonsense on 60 minutes about "ballistic
RJT>fingerprinting"...?

RJT>Jeez!

VH> The funny thing about it was, they stumbled over the truth, picked
VH> themselves up, and kept going.

That's a good way to put it!  :-)

VH> The New York case they cited took "hours" to match a suspect gun to
VH> the cases (not "casings" -- that's part of a sausage) from an 
VH> unsolved murder.  That's a relatively TINY number of comparisons to
VH> make.

VH> Then they heard Wayne LaPierre point out that if you have hundreds 
VH> of MILLIONS of cases in your database, the comparison problem would
VH> consume more resources than approaching the crime with another 
VH> method.

VH> Finally, they extolled this wonderful machine -- and what does this
VH> miraculous machine do?  Does it automatically compare cases and
VH> bullets? 

VH> NO!

VH> All it does is fire the gun as it comes off the assembly line!
VH> Everything else has to be done manually.

I almost got the feeling at the end of that bit that the people who were
pushing this were the people who wanted to sell such machines to
governments at all levels...

It's another money-maker for them,  I guess.

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