Many supporters of the Tiahrt Amendment have recently changed the way they talk about these crime-gun secrecy provisions. When the amendment was first introduced, Congressman Tiahrt said he “wanted to make sure [he] was fulfilling the needs of [his] friends who are firearms dealers.� Now, as the public has grown increasingly skeptical of government secrecy, Tiahrt and his supporters have changed their rationale, saying that the provisions are necessary to safeguard the identities of undercover officers.

At a news conference by chiefs from across the nation last week, individual chiefs and representatives of police leadership groups scoffed at that notion.

Chief Scott Knight of Chaska, Minnesota, asked:

“Do you think for a moment, for one moment, that I and my peers gathered here today, would suggest anything that would endanger our officers? We live and work with our officers. We know their families. We know their children. Do you think we would stand here and put our officers in harm's way?�

New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly echoed that sentiment in Saturday’s New York Times. Kelly, a former U.S. Department of the Treasury Under Secretary at the firearms bureau, has first-hand experience with aggregate trace data, as well as the undercover investigations Tiahrt’s supporters profess to be so concerned with.

During my tenure as under secretary, from 1996 to 1998, we routinely shared aggregate gun-crime data in the form of Crime Gun Trace Analysis Reports. These reports, no longer available since 2004, enabled police analysts to identify the nation’s illicit gun markets and the major access routes that fed them. We released timely information without jeopardizing investigations and while safeguarding privacy rights.

We can protect undercover officers and still give our detectives the tools they need to do their jobs.

Supporters of the crime-gun secrecy law are right about one thing: the Tiahrt provisions are a law enforcement issue. Congress should let the police do their jobs, and allow access to the information needed to shut down the pipelines used by gun traffickers, gangs, and petty crooks.

You can read more about police opposition to the Tiahrt provisions at ProtectPolice.org.

This issue is expected to come up in the U.S. House Appropriations Committee this week.

(Note to readers: This blog entry, as well as past blog entries, are co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and www.huffingtonpost.com)

Connecticut is one step from joining a growing number of states that make it more difficult for straw buyers to elude punishment for their crimes. Both houses of Connecticut’s legislature have now passed a bill that would require the owner of a lost or stolen firearm to file a police report. Governor Jodi Rell should sign the bill.

Beyond the obvious benefit of giving law enforcement a better chance of recovering stolen firearms, laws of this type are an important step in combating gun trafficking. Thanks to investigations by local and Federal law enforcement, we know many of the ways that gun traffickers sidestep the law. Straw buyers and traffickers often hide behind the lie that a gun was “lost� or “stolen� after it was resold illegally and later used in a crime. Taking away a refuge of criminals and gun traffickers is always in the public’s best interest.

Similar measures are pending in California, Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Similar laws are already on the books in New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio and Rhode Island. This is a common-sense measure that should be enacted in every state, despite the reflexive opposition of some voices in the gun lobby, which have yet to articulate a meaningful argument against the law. Our legal system should be in the business of punishing those who supply guns to criminals, and this law does exactly that.

One might be forgiven for thinking there is no middle ground in politics... especially on issues of gun violence. It sometimes seems as though our system is designed to discourage compromise, and to reward those who refuse even to engage in an honest dialogue with people who don't share the same worldview.

Today, the House of Representatives, the National Rifle Association, and the Brady Campaign disproved that notion, when the House voted to approve legislation cosponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy and John Dingell that would help strengthen the Brady background check system.

The Virginia Tech shootings tragically demonstrated the unnecessary gaps in the system that allowed a dangerous person to be armed. By supporting this legislation, the National Rifle Association, which fought the Brady Bill for so many years, now joins the Brady Campaign and the vast majority of Americans in affirming that effective background checks can help save lives.

We hope that Congress and the gun lobby will continue to support meaningful reforms that extend Brady background checks to all gun sales, not just those by the licensed dealers who are covered by current law. That would be a significant additional step to prevent guns from getting into the hands of dangerous people.

(Note to readers: This blog entry, as well as past blog entries, are co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and www.huffingtonpost.com)

Yesterday, Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski announced that she would strip controversial language from an appropriations bill that restricts law enforcement access to vital gun-crime data. We applaud Senator Mikulski’s commitment to law enforcement, and urge her colleagues in the House and Senate to follow her lead.

The appropriations language, commonly called the “Tiahrt Amendment,� for Congressman Todd Tiahrt of Kansas, has been the focus of nationwide debate, with dozens of law enforcement groups and hundreds of mayors uniting in efforts to remove these new restrictions.

For more information on the Tiahrt Amendment, read:

• Repealing the Tiahrt Provision
• My letter to Members of Congress
• Mayors target guns database - Rocky Mountain News
• New York Mayor wins early round in gun dispute - Associated Press
• Lawmakers ask feds to share info on gun trace data that could help find the source of guns – Associated Press
• Two Republicans square off over gun measure – Kansas City Star
• ProtectPolice.org

Last week, a landmark legislative proposal advanced in California. The State Assembly passed a bill requiring new semiautomatic handguns to imprint a code on expended shell casings. A step beyond what we see each week on “CSI,� this “ballistic fingerprinting� solidly ties bullets to guns, allowing police to determine with greater accuracy and speed which gun fired the bullets used in a crime.

If implemented, California would become the first state to require microstamping technology on new semiautomatic handguns. The Denver Post, in an editorial last week, explained why this long-term effort could have a dramatic impact on gun violence in California:

The bill's sponsor, Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-Los Angeles, said 2,400 homicides are committed each year in California and about 60 percent involve the use of a handgun. About 45 percent of those homicides are never solved because of lack of clues, Feuer said. Because 70 percent of the new handguns sold in California are semi-automatic pistols, the new technology, over time, would be a significant tool for law enforcement in tracing guns used in crime back to their original buyers and in cracking down on "straw buyers" who purchase guns for criminals.

Most people agree that those who commit crimes with firearms should be caught and punished. California’s microstamping bill will assist police investigating gun crimes. That’s in everyone’s interest, and deserves all of our support.