Nervous citizens can only hope that the Bush administration is serious about exploring the possibilities of a computerized national system for tracing bullets and cartridge casings to the guns that fired them.

The technology exists to create a national ballistic fingerprint system that would enable law enforcement officials to trace bullets recovered from shootings, like those fired by the Washington-area sniper, to a suspect.

With this information, the agency would be able to trace bullets and shell casings found at a shooting site to the gun maker and eventually to the buyer, said Mr. Vince and another former high ranking firearms bureau official.

The governor's plan would give New York the toughest gun restrictions in the nation, from requiring trigger locks with new handguns to instituting a computerized system for tracing bullets to the guns that fired them.

The N.R.A. is opposed, for example, to the creation of a national computerized system for tracing bullets and shell casings to the guns that fired them - a crime-fighting tool that has come to be known as "ballistic fingerprinting."

Following the sniper shootings in the Washington area, four states are considering creating a ballistic fingerprinting system that would enable law enforcement to trace bullets or shell casings found at a crime scene to the manufacturer and buyer of the gun.

Mr. Giuliani is counting on Albany to provide $600,000 for computers to trace spent bullets and casings that will link criminals, especially serial murderers, to multiple crimes and strengthen the hands of prosecutors who take them to court.

The New York City Police Department has stopped purchasing a type of high-velocity ammunition because of the extreme difficulty in tracing bullets to service revolvers used in police shootings, department officials said yesterday.

To the Editor: Your Oct. 17 editorial expressing support for a computerized national system for tracing bullets and cartridge casings to the guns that fired them was right on the money.

A18 The White House said that it had asked federal law enforcement experts to study whether creating a national computerized system for tracing bullets and shell casings to the guns that fired them would be an effective crime-fighting tool.