Tiahrt provision requires destruction of gun purchase records

The Miami Herald ^ | Jan. 26, 2004 | LIBBY QUAID

[neverdem]

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The government will destroy records on gun buyers after one day because of a provision Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt inserted into the spending bill that became law last week.

The length of time for keeping records will be shortened from 90 days to one day after a gun buyer passes a background check.

First proposed two years ago by Attorney General John Ashcroft two years ago, the change is a victory for gun rights advocates who argue that keeping the records is an invasion of privacy.

Gun control advocates say that destroying records immediately will handicap efforts to keep guns away from criminals and others who should not have them.

Tiahrt said that when Congress required background checks in the landmark Brady law, the intent was to destroy records at the earliest opportunity. The FBI check is meant to keep guns from being sold to felons, drug users and others barred from owning guns.

"For us law-abiding citizens, there is no need to have this database. It is a freedom issue. It is a privacy issue," Tiahrt said in an interview.

He argued that guns mistakenly sold to felons can still be traced through records that must be maintained by federally licensed firearm dealers.

"It's not that the records do not exist. If a crime is committed, they can still trace it back through the gun dealer," Tiahrt said.

Opponents of Tiahrt's provision say the records should be kept longer because there are delays in reporting domestic violence restraining orders and other prohibitions to owning guns to the National Instant Criminal Background Check system.

Some law enforcement organizations are among the opponents; the FBI Agents Association wrote lawmakers last year that a reduced retention period would make it harder to use the paperwork to investigate or prosecute crimes related to the gun sales in question.

They point to findings by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, that only seven out of 235 illegal gun sales between July 2001 and January 2002 were noticed after one day.

"There are unfortunately a lot of records in this country that are not entered into the national instant check system fast enough," said Peter Hamm, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

"What you literally have is the computer flagging, three or four days or weeks later, that somebody who had been approved to purchase a gun in some community has a domestic violence watch order on him, or has been involuntarily committed for issues of mental instability," Hamm said.

Tiahrt said chances are very low someone will slip through the system after one day.

"When you think about that out of 4 million transactions, a couple hundred were missed, we've got a pretty good system," he said. "When you look at weighing how retaining the records imposes on law-abiding private citizens, I think it's a small, negligible risk. There is no proof of any crime being committed by people that did have a firearm for some period of time when they shouldn't have had access to it."

Hamm countered that there is proof, mentioning the shooting earlier this month of two Alabama police officers by a man who had been committed several times for mental treatment before buying an assault rifle.

Alabama is among about 40 states that do not have automated systems of reporting disqualifying mental health records to the background check system, according to the Justice Department.

"It is not a small price to pay, if you're the widow of one of those cops," Hamm said.

ON THE NET

GAO report: http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-02-653

National Instant Criminal Background Check System: http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/nics.htm

[Travis McGee]

How does it go?

Legislation

Registration

Confiscation

Extermination

[basil]

One more tiny baby-step made for the good guys. Unfortunately, we still have miles to go before we sleep, with appologies to whoever first made that comment.

[in the Arena]

Bang To The Top...

[Joe Brower]

That would make a good tagline.

[blackie]

Done!

[neverdem]

You have to look real hard to find the question. You have to read every sentence in the second block of items that resembles a paragraph near the top of the left column.

[Badray]

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
and miles to go before I sleep."
--- Robert Frost, 1923 (in Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening)

[basil]

Thank you, Badray. I was almost sure it was Frost--but couldn't remember the rest of it. At one time, I had the whole thing committed to memory. But of all the things I've lost, it's my mind I miss the most!

[Badray]

The only reason that I knew was it was used in the movie "Telefon" with Charles Bronson.

[JoeFromSidney]

We were sold a bill of goods with the "instant check." When it was proposed, we imagined it would be something like a credit card verification, which is almost "instant." After all, the technology already existed for credit cards. But no, the FBI had to go about it the hard way: gun dealer phones in, waits to talk to agent, agent checks record, gives answer to gun dealer, maybe. Maybe you have to wait several days.

I once went into a gun shop, intending to buy a model they had on sale. They told me, if I'm interested in something else, why not get it at the same time, since it would take only one call to the FBI for both guns. As it turned out, they did have something that interested me, and I did buy both guns. But in a genuinely free society, I wouldn't have needed a background check.

[Drammach]

They have now, under the law, the Brady bill, the authority to keep these records for 90 days to conduct audits of the system of instant checks.

IIRC, the actual provisions of the Brady Bill called for "immeadiate" destruction of records upon approval..
It was the FBI, with the cooperation of Janet Reno, that established the "90 day rule", and there was a great deal of congressional consternation over it.