Lesley Heilman

Lesley Heilman, a spokeswoman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said she thinks gun control might become a hotter issue once the sniper is caught and it's clear how the weapon was obtained and whether the killer has a criminal background.

"It's too soon to say," she said, commenting on how the sniper case might impact the seemingly perennial gun control political debate.

But in the governor's race in Maryland, gun violence has emerged as a campaign issue, and the battle lines are familiar.

When asked for evidence to support what Henigan says, Lesley Heilman, communications director for the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence, says: "I could not find raw and specific data to support the 'faster and further' theory."

In his appearance on Crossfire Henigan spoke dismissively of arming teachers in schools as if this idea is self-evidently insane.

"In layman's terms, if you find the bullet, you find the exact gun, and that will help you find the shooter," said Lesley Heilman, spokeswoman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence."If we had this system, we could have caught this guy after the first or second time he struck."

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It's not going to prevent crime," Lesley Heilman, spokeswoman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence."What it's going to prevent are the horrible accidental shootings when children get their hands on guns."

While the NRA is working to make sure the bill misfires, even legislators who oppose how far the law would go favor pouring money into making the technology happen.

"It's just a smart, safe, reasonable thing to do," said Lesley Heilman of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a national gun-control group."It's not gun control, it's just a law-enforcement tool."

> A White House spokesman said this week that President Bush "wants this issue explored," an apparent change of tone from earlier statements suggesting that the administration saw no need for additional gun laws and that the president had doubts about the technological reliability of such a system.

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"The majority of Americans favor common-sense gun legislation," Heilman said."But the NRA has made a lot of candidates believe that if they talk about gun control, they'll lose."