Posted on 12/07/2001 3:31:47 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
WASHINGTON- Attorney General John Ashcroft's refusal to give information to the FBI about criminal background checks on gun buyers is chafing several senators. They plan to do what Ashcroft challenged them to do: change the law.
Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary Committee that gun data from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System can't be shared with investigative agencies looking into the Sept. 11 attacks, including the FBI.
At Thursday's hearing, the attorney general said that if lawmakers have a problem with that, they should change the law.
"Not that you want me to enforce some laws and not other laws and you want to ignore laws, or respect some rights and not other rights," Ashcroft told senators. "I'm very pleased to tell you that if you send me the legislation, I'll review it."
On Friday Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat and a member of the Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill allowing the FBI to check the NICS logs.
Meanwhile, some critics accuse Ashcroft of being hypocritical, given the Bush administration's recent decisions to implement a number of anti-terrorism measures without consulting Congress beforehand.
"The Department of Justice must not put the interests of the gun lobby above the nation's public safety in the battle against terrorism," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who is cosponsoring Schumer's bill.
"They have been a bull in a china shop when it comes to civil liberties, stretching their authority past the breaking point, detaining suspects and witnesses, permitting eavesdropping on detainees' conversations with attorneys and authorizing military tribunals," said Mathew Nosanchuk, lawyer for the Violence Policy Center.
Meanwhile, Ashcroft's spokeswoman issued a statement Friday decrying news accounts of the attorney general's statements at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing the day before.
Mindy Tucker said reports suggesting that Ashcroft was critical of those who don't agree with him were inaccurate. He opposes the "spread of misinformation," she said.
"Ashcroft was very clear he wanted public debate," Tucker said. "Anyone who reported that he criticized anyone who opposed him was absolutely wrong and in doing so became part of the exact problem he was describing."
Justice Department officials say they stand by the decision to deny FBI access to the records but said they are reviewing the regulations and will consider legislation submitted by Congress.
At issue is NICS, the system that electronically checks law enforcement records while gun buyers are waiting to make purchases. Felons, drug users, people subject to domestic violence restraining orders and illegal aliens are among those prohibited from buying guns.
A Justice Department regulation says the NICS logs can only be used to make sure the system is working properly. Ashcroft says giving the records to the FBI to check is not an audit function; others say the FBI should audit the system to see if it has failed by allowing illegal immigrants to purchase guns.
Asked why the department doesn't change the regulation on its own to make it clear, a Justice Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, "There's very little wiggle room for us to amend" the regulation.
The official said the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were asked after Sept. 11 to submit requests for regulatory and legislative changes that would help them investigate terrorism. The FBI and ATF did not ask for changes that would have allowed agents to use gun buyer data for investigative purposes, the official said.
Gun laws prohibit certain people from buying guns, including felons and most aliens. Terrorism suspects are not among those prohibited from gun purchases, the official said.
Besides, no guns were used or as far as we know even possessed by the terrorists. They used box cutters, not guns or anything else under the purview of Chuckies favorite agency the BATF.
Wasn't this the law that had the 'guarantee' that there would never be logs kept on the NICS system in the first place.
Handing a democrat a list of gun-owners is like providing an address registry of Jews to Hitler; not a good idea.
So I guess they have been maintaining a database of all firearms purchses after all. Who would have thought?
Any way to find out for sure?
You are right, there is a set time that they are supposed to be kept, but what bothers me is that there is no oversight and believing and knowing are two very different things. It sounds to me like they have been retaining the records for longer periods or there would be no real point in asking to search it. I know that for a long time they were not destroying them and the NRA sued to force them to do what the law said. Again, just because they say they are doesn't mean they really are.
There is the possibility that Chuckie is just using this as a springboard to retaining them. This would not only give him a national gun registration database, but also access to it. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out the next step.
Almost as easy as making backup copies of the files on zip disks?
What! you mean a politician would lie to the public? Thick Sarcasm
Saddle up Paul Revere, we shall need you soon...
"Four times, state judges have denied teenagers' wishes to have an abortion without telling their parents, and for the fourth time on Wednesday, the Texas Supreme Court ordered those judges to think again. . . .
The majority of the court - led by Chief Justice Tom Phillips and joined by Justice Craig Enoch, James A. Baker, Deborah Hankinson, Harriet O'Neill and Alberto Gonzales - said the girl's emotional well-being and the long-term family relationship needed to be considered."
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