Federal laws restrict the public's access to trace information on crime guns

[SecularMotion]

The Oakland Police Department's forensic firearms lab is at the end of a hall on the sixth floor. You can count the number of technicians who work there on one hand. Or half a hand.

It's not "CSI." Their work is slow and meticulous: test firing weapons; peering through comparison microscopes at unique markings left on slender bullets, squashed fragments and spent shell casings left at crime scenes.

When criminalist Mark Bennett sends that information to a national ballistics database, he might find out it matches evidence collected in another crime. What he won't find out is where the guns he tests come from. And he is not alone.

National crime gun trace data is available to agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, but federal laws passed by Congress within the past decade prohibit the ATF from releasing to the public detailed information on the results of ballistics tests and gun traces initiated by its own agents and law enforcement agencies around the country.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_20954784/federal-laws-restrict-publics-access-trace-information-crime

[gejohnston]

1. not actually true

the information is available to local law enforcement.

Tiahrt Amendment

Tiahrt is the author of the Tiahrt Amendment, which prohibits the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) from releasing information from its firearms trace database to anyone other than a law enforcement agency or prosecutor in connection with a criminal investigation. Additionally, any data so released is inadmissible in a civil lawsuit.[5] Some groups, including the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition, believe that having further access to the ATF database would help municipal police departments track down sellers of illegal guns and curb crime. These groups are trying to undo the Tiahrt Amendment.[6] Conversely, the Tiahrt Amendment is supported by the Fraternal Order of Police, as it allows municipal police departments full access to ATF trace data in any criminal investigation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Tiahrt#Tiahrt_Amendment
If you read closely, it says FOP is calling MAIG and Brady liars.
The real reason MAIG and Brady doesn't like the law is because such data is inadmissible in civil court, and it is available only to bona fide law enforcement and not Brady and their ambulance chasers.

[permatex]

2. OP conveniently left out that part, huh?

I wonder why that is?

[SecularMotion]

3. The article addresses the Tiahrt(R) amendment

The Tiahrt Amendment is often cited by gun control advocates as the law that most threatens public safety because it protects the identity of gun sellers and prohibits the ATF from divulging detailed gun trace data.

ATF gun trace data revealed that between July 1996 and April 1999 one gun store in Milwaukee was responsible for selling more than two-thirds of the crime guns recovered in that city within a year of sale, said Daniel Webster, professor and co-director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

When the ATF publicized the data, the store stopped selling junk guns -- small, inexpensive handguns also referred to as Saturday night specials. The researchers were able to show that the number of new, recovered crime guns in Milwaukee substantially declined after the store made the change in policy.

"Our study showed what a tremendous impact that had on the flow of guns, not just in junk guns, but all guns," Webster said.

[gejohnston]

4. the article is about the Tiahart Amendment

and mostly parrots the MAIG disinformation about it.