As new reports emerge underscoring the failure of ballistic fingerprinting, Maryland's General Assembly approaches its bill filing deadlines with the administration silent on any prospect for change of a ballistic fingerprinting law that has dramatically cut lawful sale of handguns.

Maryland's program cost well over $5 million by last summer, according to widely circulated reports at the time, yet well into its third year of operation it has yet to solve a single crime. Just the software licenses and supplies alone will cost the state about a quarter of a million dollars in the coming fiscal year.

"Apparently officials would rather pay for failed gun control experiments than road construction or school textbooks," said Jim Purtilo of Tripwire newsletter. "That's pretty extreme."

Continuing news first broken by Tripwire newsletter one week ago, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has officially released reports that demonstrate why nobody ought to have expected ballistic fingerprinting programs to work in the first place. His reports describe as "impractical" the scientific basis for such programs.

This confirms what members of the firearms community have said all along: Maryland launched a major public policy experiment three years ago based only on ideology, not science, leaving its confused taxpayers to pick up the tab.

To date the only gun legislation on General Assembly radar screens is a proposal to help state's attorneys crack down on gun ownership, under a title mis-labeled 'Project Exile.' Said Purtilo, "Most legislators repay supporters' hard work by showing what they will do for constituents. In this bill, legislators tell what they will do to constituents who might become entangled in a gun grab by extremist politicians like Doug Gansler, in Montgomery County. That's disappointing."

"Tax payers and gun owners alike are waiting for real relief from real problems facing us: like a budget bloated by failed gun control programs and a rapidly dwindling supply of Maryland-legal handguns. The news from California only makes our redress more pressing."