Minneapolis-St. Paul in Minnesota is the latest city to check in on the injustice of Tiahrt (and now Shelby). While many were hoping that, with a Democratic Congress in place, this would be the year that police officers would finally have access to gun tracing information put together by the ATF, it turns out that Congress, under the NRA’s spell, is actually going to put more restrictions on local police officers, and even threaten some of them with jailtime for doing their job.
With Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, it seemed finally possible that the information-sharing barriers — erected by allies of the National Rifle Association to protect weapons dealers — would come down. The nation’s mayors, including R.T. Rybak of Minneapolis and Chris Coleman of St. Paul, joined a bipartisan effort led by New York’s Michael Bloomberg to make it clear that local police investigations are greatly hampered by Congress-imposed restrictions on tracing guns used in crimes. Nearly 200 mayors, along with national associations of law-enforcement officers, joined the effort.
Progress seemed even more likely after the 33 killings at Virginia Tech in April, when it was discovered that a lack of free-flowing information among federal, state and local officials had led to the sale of semiautomatic weapons to a clearly disqualified buyer.
But never underestimate the power of the gun lobby — and its campaign contributions. Last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 19-10 against repealing the so-called Tiahrt Amendment, the series of federal provisions, first passed in 2003, that deny police and prosecutors access to information about guns used in local crimes. Named after Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., the provisions also prevent local authorities from sharing information about the origin of crime guns and prohibit the publishing of national data about how illegal guns move from state to state.
As if that weren’t sufficient to hogtie law-enforcement officials, the Senate committee last week inserted new language threatening local cops with jail if they use federal gun-tracing data to track the general problem of illegal gun trafficking.
Sick? It is. But it’s also true. The NRA is so hellbent on keeping its gun dealers out of the spotlight when it comes to illegal guns that they’re willing to put police officers in jail to do it. This information will allow local police to trace crime guns right back to the legal gun stores that sold them, and if those stores close, it means lost sales and bad press for the gun industry. That’s why they’ve put the NRA up to the task of making sure this information stays hidden. And the NRA has pulled every string it has to do it– they’ve convinced Congress, against the will of the people, to actually fight against police officers, and for rogue gun dealers and criminals.
The fear, according to the NRA, is that local authorities will use the data to launch civil suits against firearms manufacturers and retailers. That’s unfounded. This effort isn’t about harassing the industry or stripping away Second Amendment rights; it’s about making it harder for violent criminals to obtain guns.
Minneapolis police collected 1,200 illegal guns last year, but were prevented from discovering where the guns came from. Protecting shady gun dealers has become a hallmark of the NRA and, unfortunately, the U.S. Congress. Both will have blood on their hands if they persist in standing in the way of local police investigations.
We know that guns alone don’t kill and rob; criminals are required. But we know also that thugs would be far less lethal without easy access to guns. Our hope is that the full Senate and the House will find wisdom on this issue.
We’ve given our police officers a job to do– we’ve asked them to get illegal firearms off the streets and protect us from armed criminals. They need this information to do that job. And for our Congress, by the will of the NRA, to prevent them from getting this information is simply unacceptable. Tiahrt needs to be repealed– we shouldn’t be jailing police officers, in Minneapolis or Miami, for doing their job and tracing illegal guns back to the source.
