Prometheus 6

By collecting and analyzing our own data, the New York Police Department has developed increasingly sophisticated methods of identifying patterns and trends for assaults, robberies, drug sales, shootings and every other type of crime. Yet Congress prevents us from seeing the national data that would allow us to crack down on the No. 1 public safety threat facing our officers and the American public: illegal gun-trafficking rings.

Washington’s Secret Gun Files
By RAYMOND W. KELLY

A NARROWLY divided Congress will vote in the coming days on whether to renew legislation that stops the federal government from sharing with local police departments and prosecutors crucial information about guns used in crimes. The Tiahrt amendment, first passed in 2003, prohibits Washington from releasing crime data about guns that used to be provided to state and local law enforcement. If House members reauthorize the measure, they will harm efforts to curtail gun violence in this country.

When a gun is recovered from a crime scene, the police ask the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to trace the weapon’s provenance. Yet when our officers request the trace data for all gun crimes, the Tiahrt amendment stops us dead in our tracks — even though this aggregate information would tell us which individuals and dealers are most often involved in buying and selling guns that end up in the hands of criminals. In New York City, about 90 percent of the guns used in crimes come from out of state. Without full access to national trace data, it is far more difficult for our officers to disrupt the “iron pipeline” that brings illegal guns to our streets.

Trace data combined with other information can be a rich source for police investigations. The firearms bureau acknowledges that numerous traces from a single dealer to guns used in crimes are grounds for suspicion. Yet Congress undermines the value of the government’s data repository by requiring local police departments to investigate illegal gun trafficking rings without this information.

The defenders of the amendment — including the Republican representative who introduced it, Todd Tiahrt of Kansas — contend that it protects the anonymity of undercover officers and the confidentiality of law enforcement investigations. But there is no reason we cannot protect the anonymity of undercover officers while at the same time releasing trace data for gun crimes. I oppose unfettered public access to investigative information that may be attached to trace data, like the identities of witnesses and the particulars of active cases. But law enforcement agencies and their partners in state and local government — the people charged with safeguarding our communities against gun violence — need broad access to the federal government’s data to coordinate interdiction efforts and enforcement strategies.