NRA-ILA :: The "Tiahrt Amendment" on Firearms Traces: Protecting Gun Owners' Privacy and Law Enforcement Safety

NRA-ILA :: The "Tiahrt Amendment" on Firearms Traces: Protecting Gun Owners' Privacy and Law Enforcement Safety: "The 'Tiahrt Amendment' on Firearms Traces: Protecting Gun Owners' Privacy and Law Enforcement Safety


For more than five years, cities suing the gun industry and anti-gun organizations have sought access to confidential law enforcement data on firearms traces. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) compiles these records when it traces firearms in response to requests from law enforcement agencies.

Every year since 2003, the U.S. Congress has passed increasingly strong language to keep this information confidential. The legislation—a series of 'riders' to the appropriations bill that funds BATFE—is widely known as the 'Tiahrt Amendment,' after its sponsor, Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.).

There are good reasons for keeping this information confidential, and for strengthening the Tiahrt Amendment and making it permanent:

* Releasing the information serves no useful purpose. The Congressional Research Service has repeatedly said "firearm trace data may be biased" and "cannot be used to test for statistical significance between firearm traces in general and the wider population of firearms available to criminals or the wider American public."[1] These limitations exist because the "tracing system is an operational system designed to help law enforcement agencies identify the ownership path of individual firearms. It was not designed to collect statistics."[2]
* Traced guns aren’t always “crime guns”; firearms may be traced for reasons unrelated to any armed crime. The BATFE trace request form lists “crime codes” for traffic offenses and election law violations, among many others.
* Trace information remains available for law enforcement use. The FY 2007 version of the Tiahrt amendment ensures that trace data is available to federal, state, and local agencies "in connection with and for use in a bona fide criminal investigation or prosecution" or for use in administrative actions by BATFE—which is, of course, the principal agency responsible for overseeing the conduct of federally licensed firearms dealers.The language and history of the Gun Control Act are clear: Congress always intended to keep this information confidential, and to allow its use only for legitimate law enforcement purposes. The firearms trace database includes information such as the agency requesting a gun trace, the location from which the gun was recovered, and the identity of the dealer and original retail buyer.
* Both BATFE and the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) oppose release of trace data. In fact, BATFE has fought for years in the federal courts to keep the databases confidential, because they contain information (such as names of gun buyers) that could jeopardize ongoing investigations—not to mention law enforcement officers’ lives. For example, a suspected gun trafficker could search databases for names of "straw purchasers" he had used to buy handguns, or for traces requested on guns he had sold. That information could lead him to names of officers, informants and other witnesses against his crimes. (View commentary by FOP President Chuck Canterbury from April 24, 2007)
* Even the current language has allowed too many disclosures of sensitive information. For instance, anti-gun groups and the media have repeatedly received confidential trace data from government "leaks." And Judge Jack Weinstein of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, who presides over New York City's lawsuit against the firearms industry, has "creatively" ruled that the riders do not protect the information that Congress so clearly intended to protect.