A law that makes it harder for law enforcement officials to monitor businesses that sell crime guns needs to be repudiated by the president and repealed by Congress.

Posted: Feb. 23, 2010

Congress should get rid of a law that hides information from the public about guns used to commit crimes and the stores that sell these weapons.

Before Barack Obama became president, he vowed to get rid of the Tiahrt Amendment, which law enforcement officials say handcuffs them by shielding crime-gun data and dealers' violations from authorities.

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn says the law - named for its sponsor, Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) - made it harder for his department to connect the dots on Badger Guns, though the gun store has sold guns linked to the shootings of six local officers.

Effective law enforcement is data-driven. And if a law constricts that flow of information, state and local law officials are hampered in their abilities to trace crime guns to their sources.

Since the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives no longer provides an updated "Cliffs Notes" version of its firearms data to state and local authorities, local police agencies - including the Milwaukee Police Department - are forced to expend valuable resources to gather, track and store this data. And when police personnel are doing this, other law enforcement efforts suffer. Loss of this data also restricts coordination between cities and states to identify certain trends - criminal organizations moving city to city or state to state, for instance.

Ostensibly, the amendment was enacted to protect undercover officers and investigations, a notion that both Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and Flynn label as ludicrous.

We agree. The amendment's intent - at the behest of the National Rifle Association - was simply to shield gun dealers from scrutiny. If ATF's moniker means anything, it should be in the business of routinely supplying the information local law enforcement agencies need to do their jobs well.

The majority of gun shop owners sell their wares responsibly. But there are a few shady actors who do not want to have any spotlight on them if an abundance of their buyers just happen to be straw buyers doing the bidding of people barred by law from having guns.

Repealing Tiahrt in no way infringes on the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Its existence, however, does endanger the public because it makes it harder for law enforcement to spot and stop sloppy or unscrupulous gun dealers.