New York State Rifle & Pistol Association: CoBIS Has Not Worked and Should be Abolished

TROY, NY (03/28/2011)(readMedia)-- This month marks the 10th anniversary of New York's Combined Ballistic Identification System (CoBIS) program. Under this program, all new handguns sold in the state must be test fired and the shell casing imaged and entered into an electronic databank for possible crime scene identification.

Since its inception in March 2001, a total 311,859 shell casings have been cataloged. At an estimated cost of $4 million dollars per year, $40 million dollars has been spent on CoBIS over the past decade.

What have taxpayers received for this? Absolutely nothing. Not a single crime has been solved because of it. By any measure, CoBIS has been a total failure and a public policy disaster.

Now, the same people who swore CoBIS would work are back pushing more of the same failed philosophy in the form of mandatory firearms microstamping, which is essentially another ballistic imaging scheme based upon unproven science fiction technology. The New York State Sheriffs' Association recognizes this nonsense and opposes the microstamping legislation.

NYSRPA calls upon Governor Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and state legislative leaders to publicly recognize these boondoggles for what they are, defund the CoBIS program and stand up to the fringe special interests advocating microstamping.