Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President
The National Rifle Association
11250 Waples Mill Road
Fairfax, Virginia 22030

Dear Mr. LaPierre:

Now that ballistics imaging has connected the bullets used in the Washington, DC, area sniper shootings to the gun found with John Allen Muhammad, I hope you and the NRA will drop your opposition to legislation that would create a National Ballistics Fingerprint Database. I again invite you to accept my offer to work together to enact legislation that will immeasurably aid law enforcement and better protect the public.

If the police had been able to run the bullets recovered at these crime scenes against a national ballistics database, they would have tracked down where the gun was originally sold and would have been on the trail to Tacoma within the first few days of the investigation. Not only would this have helped solve the original crime, but it could have saved many lives.

The NRA has endorsed the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN) which employs the exact same technology that would be used by a ballistics fingerprint database. The ballistics fingerprint database does precisely the same thing, comparing the digital image of a bullet found at a crime scene to the digital image of a bullet fired when a gun was first sold.

You have argued that because ballistic impressions change after a gun has been fired thousands of times, a fingerprint database is useless. The ATF and local law enforcement experts from all over the country disagree. I cannot believe you continue to dispute the value of this technology, but if you continue to stick to that position, I will again offer you the same deal I proposed to you last Sunday: We agree to convene a panel of law enforcement experts – who are neither pro-gun nor anti-gun – and give them six months to study this issue. If they determine that such a database will not aid law enforcement, I will agree to withdraw my support for the database. But if they decide that a national ballistics fingerprint system will aid law enforcement, you agree to support the BLAST bill.

This database would not affect the ability of law abiding gun-owners to own and use guns at all. To protect law abiding hunters and sportsmen from any misuse of the ballistics database by government, the BLAST bill explicitly prohibits ballistics information from being used for any purpose unless it is necessary for the investigation of a gun crime. It relies only on the serial numbers of the guns – it uses no names – and would only be used to trace guns whose bullets are used in crimes.

A national database would supplement random tips from anonymous witness with legitimate leads that will help the police jumpstart their investigations. It's a common sense tool that no police agency should be without and I urge the NRA to endorse this legislation as soon as possible. With your support and advocacy, I believe we can get this legislation enacted by January. At a bare minimum, I encourage you to accept my offer to have a panel of law enforcement experts examine the utility of such a database and agree with me to abide by their conclusions.

I look forward to hearing from you so we can push this legislation forward together.

Sincerely,
Charles E. Schumer
United States Senator