New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Advises Gov. Paterson to Cut COBIS Program

TROY, NY (10/19/2009)(readMedia)-- In these difficult economic times, Gov. Paterson has called for $3 billion in budget cuts. The New York State Rifle & Pistol Association has a suggestion for saving several million taxpayer dollars each year: abolish the Combined Ballistic Identification System (COBIS).

The COBIS program was introduced by Gov. Pataki in 2000. Its stated purpose is to collect identifying data from the shell casings of all new handguns sold in the state. This information is then entered into a database for use by law enforcement to aid in identifying and prosecuting criminals. Since its inception, over a quarter of a million shell cases have been collected and entered into the database at an estimated cost of $32 million and not a single arrest or conviction has resulted. In fact, COBIS has proven to be such a boondoggle that no other state is even considering implementing their own version of it.

If Gov. Paterson is serious about saving money, then COBIS ought to be at the top of the list of programs to be cut.