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

[July 4th]

Gun control advocates say that destroying records immediately will handicap efforts to keep guns away from criminals

If NICS works, there's no reason to keep the records to "keep guns away from criminals." Their names will come up in minutes, not in 24 hours, not in 1 year.

[Gerasimov]

Isn't this redundancy kind of an unnecessarily redundant repeating of the same redundant unnecessary thing?

First proposed two years ago by Attorney General John Ashcroft two years ago

But seriously... yea for Tiahrt!
I only buy my guns from private citizens ... I don't need the ATF knowing what I have and what I don't!

[lelio]

I read the title as "Tikrit [Iraq] ..." making me think Iraq was more pro-second amendment than we are ;)

[metesky]

Once in a gub'mint computer, always in a gub'mint computer.

[highnoon]

Totally agree with you there. I'm reading the article and thinking......Uhhhh, yeah right.

[Redcloak]

Good. I was never clear on why we'd want to keep records on otherwise uninteresting people.

(Uninteresting from a law enforecement point of view, that is.)

Miserable failure

[OXENinFLA]

So this is what the dems were all PO'ed about last week.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Bang

[OXENinFLA]

Senate - January 20, 2004

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, the Omnibus appropriations bill contains elements that contradict the express votes of this body and the other body, bipartisan votes that in fact protected workers against losing their overtime, that insisted upon country-of-origin labeling, that dealt with media ownership. And at the last moment, at the direction of the administration, these provisions were overridden and contradicted. There are other provisions that have been included in this measure that should not stand a fair vote on the Senate floor.

There is a provision, inserted in this bill by the House Republican leadership over the objection of the Republican subcommittee chairman of the Commerce-State-Justice and Judiciary Committee, that would require the FBI to destroy records of gun sales within 24 hours. 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.

A study analyzing just 6 months' activity conducted by the General Accounting Office showed that the FBI was able to retrieve 235 firearms that had been sold to illegal purchasers, prohibited purchasers, wife beaters, murderers, the whole parade of perpetrators. If this legislation passes and the 24-hour rule stands, then instead of recovering 235 of these weapons, 7,228 firearms will be in the hands of murderers, wife beaters, robbers, those people who endanger the American public.

This provision should not be allowed, without a vote, to become the law of the land. In the words of Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton:


I'm very opposed to this effort to make the Brady law toothless, and I just don't understand how Members of Congress can even consider it. Obviously, they haven't shown up at the scene of enough officer shootings.


What we hear from the NRA and their allies is ``just enforce the laws.'' How can you enforce the law if you don't have the information on the sale?

This provision should be stricken.

[TMSuchman]

They may destroy the record, but after they have made copies of it! Do I trust my goverment?





HECK NO!

[RetiredArmy]

Gun control advocates say that destroying records immediately will handicap efforts to keep guns away from criminals

That is total B.S.! They should never get to the level of destroying the records of purchase if the system catches them BEFORE they purchase as this check you out system does. Just more leftist/nazi/soviet take away the guns to control the population system.

[longtermmemmory]

my the miami herald is becoming particularly shrill these days. If they leaned any further left we would have to prop their building up and paint it commie red.

[neverdem]

Chief Bratton and Senator Reed can stuff it. BTW, Bratton was the NYPD Chief most responsible for the crime reduction in New York City. Guliani couldn't share the credit, and Bratton had to take a powder. If it was up to Bratton, he would have a police state. Let's see what happens in LA.

[neverdem]

BANG, Joe it's already on the *bang_list.

[Joe Brower]

Hats off and a hearty "well done" to Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt!

[Tijeras_Slim]

Good man!

[Freedom2specul8]

"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"

Great news! Thanks for the ping Joe!

[blackie]

Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt ~ Bump!

The Second Amendment ~~
America's Original Homeland Security!

[Shooter 2.5]

Freep the poll

http://www.channel3000.com/index.html