Posted on 07/30/2002 7:09:04 AM PDT by Joe Brower
A Times Editorial
The NRA poster boy
Attorney General John Ashcroft wants information that would keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons, fugitives and illegal aliens purged after a day.
© St. Petersburg Times
July 30, 2002
Attorney General John Ashcroft's views are so extreme on gun control laws that he finds himself in the position of shielding gun-toting felons and illegal aliens. One would think such a stand would embarrass Ashcroft, who is supposedly in the midst of fighting terrorism inside our borders. Yet Ashcroft's zeal never wavers as he protects his favorite special interest, the gun lobby.
His latest outrageous behavior comes in the debate over the National Instant Criminal Background Check system, called NICS. It works this way: When someone buys a gun, the FBI or state law enforcement officials do a background check to keep firearms out of the hands of convicted felons, fugitives and illegal aliens. The law allows those records to be retained for 90 days, after which they must be destroyed. Ashcroft wants the records purged after a single day.
Those 90 days are important to law enforcement officials, who often discover after the fact that a gun was illegally purchased. They can then use NICS records to find the buyer and retrieve the gun. In fact, of the 235 illegal gun sales in a recent six-month period, all but 7 took longer than a day to be noticed, according to a new study by the General Accounting Office.
Ashcroft says using the records for criminal investigations is illegal, claiming it is an invasion of gun owners' privacy. This isn't the only time the attorney general has given the law his own interpretation to advance the gun industry's agenda.
When the FBI began rounding up foreign residents after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the agency wanted to use NICS records to determine if those suspects had purchased guns, possibly illegally. Ashcroft said no and in December testified to U.S. Senate that "Congress specifically outlaws and bans . . . the use of approved purchase records for weapons checks on possible terrorists or anyone else."
Not exactly. Recently, a Justice Department memo dated two months prior to his testimony surfaced. "We see nothing in the NICS regulations that prohibits the FBI from deriving additional benefits from checking audit log records" as part of their terrorism investigation, the memo stated.
Ashcroft has been only too willing to trample on the rights of many Americans to achieve his often narrow agenda. The exception has been gun manufacturers, dealers and owners. For them, he has created new constitutional protections.
In arguing a gun case in May before the U.S. Supreme Court, Ashcroft's Justice Department revealed that it would change decades of federal policy and reinterpret the Second Amendment to give individuals the constitutional right to own firearms. Until then, the Justice Department had contended that the Second Amendment confers the right to bear arms only on the "well regulated militia" that is its subject.
No wonder Ashcroft is the poster boy, literally, of the National Rifle Association, which put him on the cover of its magazine. Meanwhile, 30,000 Americans a year are killed by guns, and attorneys for John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban, have latched onto Ashcroft's pronouncements to defend their client's actions.
It is becoming increasingly clear that John Ashcroft is far outside the American mainstream when it comes to reasonable gun control.
My favorite here is the line "Ashcroft has been only too willing to trample on the rights of many Americans to achieve his often narrow agenda.". Good God! Are these leftist shills masters of the art of projection or what!? These leftmedia creatures are completely without shame, or honor. But they certainly have an agenda...
His views are a somwhat near the Founding Father's views. But the Founding Fathers had an extreme view of freedom of the press also - I think it is time we start restricting it - for the children
Sorry, couldn't resist! :-)
After it passed and the FL murder rate went down by 27% in the next 5 years, somehow the editors never got around to admitting they were totally wrong and that they had deliberately lied about the bill.
The St. Pete Pravda as it is known in these parts has a long tradition of being against private gun ownership. They do not allow ads for handguns or "weapons for war" in their classified section. No self respecting gun owner that I know subscribes to this socialist rag. At least the Tampa Tribune will allow you to advertise your AR15 for sale.
Completely ignoring that before the 'decades' of the previous policy was 150 years of the correct understanding of "HANDS OFF MY GUNS".
The part of the GCA68 that seems to be ignored by the gungrabbers:
The Gun Control Act of 1968, Public Law 90-618
An Act to amend title 18, United States Code, to provide for better control of the interstate traffic in firearms.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that this Act may be cited as the "Gun Control Act of 1968".
Title I -- State Firearms Control Assistance
Purpose
Sec. 101. The Congress hereby declares that the purpose of this title is to provide support to Federal, State, and local law enforcement officials in their fight against crime and violence, and it is not the purpose of this title to place any undue or unnecessary Federal restrictions or burdens on law-abiding citizens with respect to the acquisition, possession, or use of firearms appropriate to the purpose of hunting, trapshooting, target shooting, personal protection, or any other lawful activity, and that this title is not intended to discourage or eliminate the private ownership or use of firearms by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, or provide for the imposition by Federal regulations of any procedures or requirements other than those reasonably necessary to implement and effectuate the provisions of this title.
Yeah yeah, a day is not enough, but I doubt that 90 days will be enough either. Why not a year? Why not forever?
/sarcasm
Didn't some group manage to get a CD of gun buyers from Reno under a FIA request?
Uh, does anybody know where I can get one of those posters?
What exactly is NInstantCS doing if it's not instantly detecting the eligibility of a prospective firearm purchaser ?
If NICS is allowing "illegal" firearms purchases what's the point ?
First question.
St. Pete. Times, go _____ Yourself. Go ____ yourself.
Wrong. The law says if the buyer is not prohibited than the personal information on the buyer is to be destroyed imediately.
Those 90 days are important to law enforcement officials, who often discover after the fact that a gun was illegally purchased. They can then use NICS records to find the buyer and retrieve the gun. In fact, of the 235 illegal gun sales in a recent six-month period, all but 7 took longer than a day to be noticed, according to a new study by the General Accounting Office.
Wrong. The FBI has three working days to determine if the buyer is a prohibited person. If three working days pass and there has been no determination of the person's status then the firearm can be transfered. They keep checking. I do these checks all the time and have never transfered a firearm until the NICS system has approved the transfer no matter how long it takes. In any case, under the law, the FBI records the time, date and FFL number of the NICS request and keeps it forever and the buyer info is on the required Form 4473 "yellow form" which must be retained by the dealer for twenty years.
Any chance you could write a letter to the editor pointing out these deliberate lies in this hit-piece? I would, but being located in Venice, the SPT won't accept letters from non-subscribers (I know, I've tried). Granted, to refute all the falsehoods in this one article would take a whole page in the paper, but a little's better than nothing.
It chaps my hide to see these damned lies repeated over and over again by a leftmedia that doesn't give a tinker's damn about the truth, but only it's victim-disarmament agenda. They don't even have the guts to print the name of the sh!theel author of this crapola -- the name "Sarah Brady" would probably tip off too many folks.
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