Lawmakers should quit impeding efforts to curb trafficking in illegal guns

July 3, 2007

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Since 2003, an insidious amendment that limits the sharing of data on gun purchases among law-enforcement agencies around the nation has been tucked into the annual Justice Department appropriations bill. It'll be there again this year, unless House members can derail it in their version of the bill, which is still in committee, and senators can turn it back when their bill comes to a floor vote.

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday ventured irresponsibly beyond the already harsh restrictions on police agencies' sharing of gun-trace data. Those restrictions are in the Tiahrt Amendment, named for its sponsor, Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan. In approving an amendment sponsored by Sen. Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., committee members added an onerous provision that would sentence to five years in prison any police officer who used such data for any purpose other than a specific criminal investigation.

Mayors of cities of all sizes across the nation, including Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman and the mayors of most of Ohio's major cities, have joined in a coalition to fight these amendments. By restricting to criminal investigations the use of gun-purchasing information maintained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, these measures interfere with police trying to stop illegal gun-trafficking.

Along with Mayors Against Illegal Guns, many chiefs of police and national law-enforcement groups also have called for an end to this legislation, which prevents officers from using gun-purchase data to track the illegal movement of firearms.

The National Rifle Association and weapons dealers support the amendments, because they dislike just about any system that allows tracing of guns to owners and sellers. These groups say such tracing interferes with privacy rights and makes gun owners and sellers the potential targets of lawsuits seeking to hold individuals accountable for crimes committed with guns sold illegally.

The underground flow of weapons has become a deadly plague on this nation, and Ohio is a major crossroads in this trade. Just as the war on illegal drugs requires cooperation among police agencies, so, too, does the effort to disarm criminals. Congress should stop hindering the nation's law-enforcement agencies in their fight against crime.