July 15, 2007

It hardly matters that it's the Democrats who now ostensibly control Congress. On the critical matter of fighting gun crime, it's still the gun lobby that prevails. The National Rifle Association in particular still controls enough votes, on both sides of the aisle, to stop local governments from making even modest progress in their quest to reduce gun violence.

Really, now, what sensible person would resist legislation that would give local governments and police agencies access to data tracking gun sales? Why can't they know where guns used in the commission of crimes came from?

The House Appropriations Committee has succeeded in keeping rigid restrictions in place on when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can share such data. More than a dozen Democrats voted with the interests of the gun lobby and against the interests of local law enforcement. The likelihood that legislation allowing appropriate access to that data will be passed by Congress is remote at best.

Thursday's vote by the Appropriations Committee was a rebuke, complete with almost certainly deadly consequences, to the people who know better, people like Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York City and Mayor Jerry Jennings…

The main culprit is Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan. He's the author of an amendment aimed at keeping what's known as trace data out of the hands of anyone who might use it to crack down on the 1 percent of gun dealers who sell most of the guns used in crimes.

The man is capable of stunning self-deception. Listen:

"What the Tiahrt amendment does is protect those who protect us," Mr. Tiahrt says, suggesting that more widely accessible gun sales data would lead to the disclosure of police officers' identities and thus put them at risk. In fact, legislation sponsored by Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., aimed at allowing gun sales data to be shared includes a provision that police officers' names not be compromised.

Mr. Tiahrt is outdone, though, by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. His amendment, which the Senate Appropriations Committee passed last month, would make it illegal for police officers to use federal gun trace data for anything except a specific criminal investigation.

So that's the sort of crime, complete with possible prison sentences, that would bother these tools of the gun lobby -- not the very real violence that's all too common on the streets of urban America.

So what if the data kept by state Division of Criminal Justice Services show firearm-related assaults up 111 percent in Albany so far this year? Mr. Shelby and others in the Senate are more troubled by the people who might try to prevent such incidents.

Mr. Tiahrt, meanwhile, says the mayors and police chiefs who want access to federal gun data would use it in lawsuits against out-of-state gun dealers.

Well, Mr. Tiahrt, what if they did? What's your obsession with protecting the unsavory gun dealers whom this data can clearly link to violent crime?

Gun crime won't be brought under control in this country as long as federal laws are so upside-down.

THE ISSUE: Congress appears determined to keep gun sales data out of the hands of the very people who need it.

THE STAKES: Mayors and police chiefs will continue to have a much tougher time fighting crime.