Lawmakers Block Access to Gun Sales Data

Law-enforcement personnel check guns that were removed from Elliot's Gun Shop in Jefferson, La., in this May 16, 2007, file photo. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, on the outskirts of New Orleans, murderers-to-be armed themselves at Elliot's Gun Shop. Over the past five years, the store was the source of 2,300 weapons later linked to crime, including an astonishing 125 homicides. (AP Photo/Bill Haber, File) (Bill Haber - AP)

WASHINGTON -- Pro-gun rights Democrats teamed with House Republicans on Thursday to block local governments and law enforcement agencies from gaining routine access to gun-purchasing data.

The House Appropriations Committee defeated two attempts by gun control advocates to strip four-year-old restrictions on the use of information from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tracing gun sales. The votes were a victory for the National Rifle Association and came despite the Democratic takeover of Congress in January.

The committee's emotional debate often focused on broader gun rights issues rather than the matter at hand, involving when the bureau can share such information.

Gun control advocates say the gun sales data is essential to uncovering dealers who sell guns that disproportionately end up in the hands of criminals.

Gun rights advocates, led by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., said mayors such as New York's Michael Bloomberg want the data to sue out-of-state gun dealers.

Tiahrt, the key sponsor of the restrictions on sharing gun trace data, also said easing the restrictions could lead to the disclosure of police officers' identities and other details to criminals.

"What the Tiahrt amendment does is protect those who protect us," Tiahrt said.

Pro-gun advocates say the data-sharing restrictions protect gun owners' privacy. But Bloomberg and other mayors contend they hamper law enforcement authorities' ability to trace illegal guns and arrest weapons traffickers.

"This handcuffs the cops, not the criminals," said Rep. C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger, D-Md.

More than a dozen Democrats, most from rural districts, joined with all but two committee Republicans to defeat a bid by Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to ease the data sharing restrictions but ensure that police officers' names would not be compromised.

Earlier, a bid by Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., to reject Tiahrt's language altogether lost by a voice vote.

The mayors say gun tracing data helps police departments determine the source of illegal guns, who buys them and how they are distributed.