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Bush Administration Cool to 'Fingerprinting' Guns Tue Oct 15, 3:02 PM ET By Adam Entous WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Tuesday brushed aside calls for 'fingerprinting' firearms in response to string of sniper attacks in the Washington area, saying it may not be reliable in identifying shooters and could undermine the rights of law abiding gun owners. 'New laws don't stop people like this,' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said of the sniper, who has killed nine people in two weeks. 'What we must do is ... enforce the laws we have so that people who commit crimes, especially crimes with guns, will be fully prosecuted and serve time.' Gun control groups say the case of the sniper has underscored the need for a national 'ballistic fingerprinting' law, which would require that firearms be test-fired before they are sold and their unique 'fingerprints' entered into a computer database accessible to law enforcement agencies. Two states, New York and Maryland, already require a record to be kept of ballistic fingerprints, but gun control groups say a national law is needed to give police the tools they need to track shooters like the Washington-area sniper. 'If you ask any of the hundreds of investigators working to find the sniper, they would very much like to know where the gun first was sold and who first bought it. If we had a national ballistics fingerprinting system in place, they probably would have that information,' said Matt Bennett, director of public affairs at Americans for Gun Safety. While Fleischer said Bush would consider all his options, he challenged the reliability of ballistic fingerprinting -- a system of using markings from bullets and shell casings like fingerprints to link specific handguns with gun crimes. 'Questions have been raised about its accuracy and reliability on a national level,' he told reporters. Fleischer said ballistic markings can be easily altered, rendering the 'fingerpri
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