Authorities in Philadelphia are attacking an important part of the illegal gun trade, in this case people who act as "straw purchasers" for felons and gun traffickers.

In today's Philadelphia Inquirer:

... Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham delivered a more blunt message yesterday by announcing the arrests of 13 people charged with illegal firearms transfers, including five alleged straw buyers. She said two allegedly had bought dozens of guns and peddled them on the street.

State law prohibits convicted felons from buying firearms and requires gun dealers to perform a record check before making a sale. Felons sometimes use "straws" - people with no criminal record - to buy guns for them.

Branding anybody who acts as a straw buyer "a fool, a liar, and a bad person," Abraham said the blood of gun-violence victims was on the hands of straw purchasers. "It's all on you," she said.

The campaign also has an additional intended audience: the state legislature.

Corbett said the $5 million in annual funding for the Philadelphia Gun Violence Task Force, which pays the salaries of prosecutors, investigators and forensic technicians, was up for renewal. Abraham said the task force had opened 621 investigations, arrested 179 people, and seized 265 firearms since it began in December 2006.

Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Jose M. Melendez, who also attended the news conference, said straw buyers were "just as guilty as the person who pulled the trigger."

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While prosecuting straw purchasers is important, it is even more important to prosecute the unscrupulous licensed gun dealers who recklessly sell guns to those straw buyers and traffickers in the first place. Brady Center reports have documented how this works (examples here, here, here, here, and here).

It also useful to limit bulk purchases of handguns to cut down on the amount of guns a single trafficker can sell in the illegal market.

We need to give state and Federal law enforcement the tools they need to attack the supply chain of illegal guns, not only at the end of the process, but also much nearer the source.

During Sen. John McCain’s speech to a National Rifle Association gathering in D.C. in September 2007, he said the following:

So you know, my friends, you're a sophisticated crowd. You know politics and you know politicians. You're pretty used to hearing aspirants for public office come before you and pledge fealty to the cause of the Second Amendment. You know you need to dig into a politician's record to find out where they really stand. You know some will change their positions or have little record for you to judge, and my friends, that's not the case with me.

While Sen. McCain did reference his support for closing the gun show loophole, as I’ve discussed before, he implied that this was the only gun control issue where he parted ways with the NRA.

My staff did a little digging and found an interesting passage from a longer floor speech Sen. McCain delivered to the Senate in January 2004. In it, he takes three common-sense stands in favor of what are today key items in the Brady Campaign’s legislative agenda.

First, Sen. McCain spoke against the restrictions on ATF trace data sponsored by Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), even as those restrictions were pushed by the National Rifle Association. (As Rep. Tiahrt said himself, “I wanted to make sure I was fulfilling the needs of my friends who are firearms dealers.� NRA officials “were very helpful in making sure I had my bases covered,� Rep. Tiahrt said.)

Next, Sen. McCain spoke against the requirement to destroy records of firearms transactions within 24 hours, preferring the 90-day rule that gave law enforcement time to catch prohibited purchasers not immediately rejected by Brady criminal background checks.

Finally, Sen. McCain spoke against the prohibition on ATF to conduct inventory audits of licensed gun dealers, which allowed law enforcement to keep track of “lost� or “stolen� weapons – like the Bushmaster assault rifle used by the DC snipers.

For some reason, there has been little discussion of Sen. McCain’s 2004 statements about the Tiahrt restrictions against ATF, the 24-hour record destruction rule, and the inventory audit procedures of gun stores. There is no mention of them on his campaign Web site, in his speeches to the NRA, nor in the recent discussions he had with NRA leadership.

Here are Sen. McCain’s comments from 2004:

“Instant Check/Gun Provision

Mr. President, let me state from the outset that I take a backseat to no one in my support for Second Amendment rights, and I have supported nearly every law that protects the rights of law abiding gun owners since first coming to Washington. But there is a special interest rider included in this Omnibus appropriations bill that’s absolutely appalling. The House sponsor of this provision has argued that it benefits gun owners, but the only gun owners it seems to help are those who have broken the law!

This rider has three major provisions - all of them unnecessary for gun owners and none of them helpful for law enforcement. First, it requires that background check approval records be destroyed within 24 hours instead of the current policy of 90 days. Proponents argue that keeping these records for 90 days constitutes a national firearm registry.

I want to be very clear that I oppose federal registration of firearms. I also want to be equally clear that our current policy of keeping these records for 90 days does not constitute in any way, shape, or form a national registry. It’s a phony issue.

The 90 days retention allows the NICS system to correct mistakes that occur when they accidentally approve someone who should have been denied a gun in the first place. This happens about 500 times a year, according to GAO. Nearly all of these false approvals are because of missing domestic violence records. So, as far as I can tell, this provision benefits no one except those who should have been denied a firearm, but were not.

The second provision prevents ATF from conducting an inventory audit of licensed gun stores. This means that ATF auditors will have no way of knowing if a gun store is missing firearms - a sure sign that they are selling guns illegally and without the proper background checks.

Mr. President, in Tacoma, Washington, ATF auditors discovered 233 firearms missing from Bull’s Eye Shooters Supply store. One of those weapons was used by the accused DC-area snipers. Why are we putting special language in a must-pass federal spending bill to protect a store like Bull’s Eye? Consider the potential consequences.

And a third provision prohibits the public release of crime gun trace information. This information is not top secret data that jeopardizes our national security, or hinders law enforcement. We cannot have a government that operates in secret and refuses to release information that shows where criminals have obtained a gun.

This provision has no support from the law enforcement community, and was even opposed by Chairman Young and Subcommittee Chairman Wolf. Yet, here it is today, included in this terrible bill. Mr. President, this language is an embarrassment to law abiding gun owners and is a slap in the face to law enforcement.�

It would be very interesting to hear whether Sen. McCain still supports these positions today.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

What would you think of someone who referred to the National Sheriffs Association and its 21,000 members as a “puppet police organization�?

Or who called the 20,000 members of the International Association of Chiefs of Police a “pseudo police organization�?

Or who thinks that AFL-CIO member group The International Brotherhood of Police Officers is “just a website�?

Or who dismisses the expertise and experience of 20 state and regional law enforcement groups and more than 200 individual chiefs of police?

You’d probably think that person was no friend to chiefs of police or rank-and-file officers. You’d probably think that person had a deep distrust for law enforcement authorities, and was hoping to discredit them to further some political goal. But you’d never think that person had painted himself as a champion of police.

And yet, those words were recently spoken by Congressman Todd Tiahrt, who insists that his crime-gun secrecy restrictions were designed for the protection of police officers and the preservation of official investigations. This is the same crime-gun secrecy law that the International Brotherhood of Police Officers calls “anti-law-enforcement,� and which New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said “[harms] efforts to curtail gun violence in this country.�

The Tiahrt restrictions, which have been in Appropriations bills since 2003, may face a vote in the House of Representatives later today. Whatever the political debate has in store for this controversial measure, it’s clear that real police groups have real concerns about not being able to access data on the source of crime guns.

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

A key House committee yesterday left in place a gun lobby provision that prevents cities and law enforcement officials from accessing vital data on illegal gun trafficking for proactive crime fighting.

Even though the reasons for the restriction seem to have little basis in reality, the Committee’s vote did not come as a surprise to those of us who follow the issue.

More than a dozen newspapers, including Rep. Todd Tiahrt’s own hometown paper, have called for this restriction to be lifted. Two of the latest are the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and the Washington Post. Also, today’s New York Daily News tells the horrible story of a fallen NYPD officer and how the gun that shot him was trafficked illegally from Virginia. Whose interests are protected by preventing the NYPD from identifying the sources of the guns that are spilling the blood of their comrades and others before shootings occur?

The fight to restore law enforcement data to agencies, chiefs, mayors, and officers has now moved to the House floor. Supporters of police still hope to strip the provision from the appropriations bill. We urge Members of Congress to listen to the 230 mayors, 220 chiefs of police, and 32 state and national law enforcement agencies that have asked for this information to help them do their jobs better. Our legislators should stand behind our police, not in their way.

The House of Representatives should follow Rep. Patrick Kennedy’s lead and strip the Tiahrt provisions out of the appropriations bill.

In recent weeks, we’ve seen a steadily-increasing flow of newspaper editorial boards and prominent law enforcement leaders (including the National Sheriffs’ Association) come out in favor of repealing the Tiahrt restrictions on crime-gun trace data. Here are some of the most recent editorials and reports:

• Crime-fighters vs. Congress – Boston Globe
• Groveling on guns – Albany Times Union
• Aim for safety – San Francisco Chronicle
• Local cops lose on gun data issue – Minneapolis Star-Tribune
• Police Chief to ask Congress for access to weapons database – Louisville Courier Journal
• The NRA’s Senate – New York Times
• Taking on the NRA – Baltimore Sun
• Tracking illegal handguns – Philadelphia Inquirer
• Repeal gun info ban to make streets safer – Chicago Sun-Times
• Gun tragedy – Worcester Telegram