Our View - Monday

Dodging a bullet

Gun-tracking data open to law enforcement

Have you ever heard the same joke told by different people and gotten a good belly laugh at one version while the other barely coaxed a a chuckle? We feel that way sometimes when we read news stories from different sources. On Thursday, a report out of Washington, D.C., told of a victory by the nasty old National Rifle Association that handcuffs police in their efforts to trace firearms used in crimes.

According to The Associated Press, the House Appropriations Committee killed two amendments to the Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill that would have opened up data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives firearms traces to local police agencies. Gun-control advocates argued that current language, called the Tiahrt Amendment after sponsor Rep. Ted Tiahrt, R-Kan., restricted police access to the traces that local authorities needed to detect patterns of illegal gun purchases and the flow of guns from dealers to the streets. They say such access is necessary to shut down illegal gun sales operations.

Gun-rights advocates contended that allowing such access could put undercover officers in danger of exposure. They also held that gun controllers wanted to scuttle the Tiahrt Amendment, which has been public policy since 2003, to obtain information to support lawsuits against firearms dealers accused of providing guns to criminals.

A quick check of the NRA Web site, admittedly a player with an agenda, tells a different story. For one thing, it provides more information about the two amendments the committee killed. The first would have done away with the Tiahrt language altogether and made BATFE data public record for anyone to see. The second, a so-called compromise, would have allowed access to the data to anyone who filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the feds. The NRA also points out that many police agencies support the Tiahrt language as a way of protecting officers. Those agencies don’t seem to believe opening the database is a good idea.

We’re usually avid backers of measures designed to let the people know what government is doing on their behalf. But the benefit of openness must be weighed against the possible risks they might entail. Governments often stymie efforts to make records public, usually using this or similar arguments to defend the position. In those cases, courts usually have to decide the issue by considering if disclosure is worth putting police officers in danger or risking compromising investigations that could keep firearms out of the hands of criminals.

And it isn’t as though local law enforcement agencies don’t have access to the database to track firearms. Current law gives them the access they need to be able to link firearms used in different crimes, so the gun-controllers’ claim that the amendment cripples that ability doesn’t hold water.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is one of the foremost proponents of opening the database to all comers. He wants his city to be able to use the information in its lawsuit against the gun industry and to allow city police to act against out-oftown gun dealers the city believes are responsible for guns ending up on city streets. The mayor apparently overlooks the fact that there is already an agency that has the power to cross state lines and investigate and close down firearms dealers who run afoul of the law — the BATFE. If Bloomberg has information that dealers are illegally selling guns that end up in his city, he should stop grandstanding, share that information with the BATFE and allow the feds to do their jobs.

We’re not accusing the AP of bias, but we did want to use the story to illustrate the importance of getting information from various sources. Maybe if Mayor Bloomberg had done that, he would know about the federal government’s role in closing gun shops that don’t follow the law.

Decline in drug use should spark debate

We couldn’t help but notice the front-page story in the July 8 Gazette trumpeting, “Illegal drugs getting scarcer.” The wire service report began by noting that the availability of most illegal drugs is down and drug seizures are up. Drug warriors point to this information as proof the war on drugs is succeeding. Not everyone, however, is reaching that same conclusion.

Thomas Babor of the journal Addiction believes the United Nations drug warriors are looking at short-term trends and ignoring long-range predictions. According the story, others note that street prices for heroin and cocaine in the United States remain at or near all-time lows, generally a market indicator of large supplies and ready availability.

One of the reasons for availability and low prices might be that drug use could be on the decline in the U.S. The University of Maryland’s annual survey of drug use by high schoolers in the past 12 months — a traditional drug-war benchmark — shows a 23 percent decline over the past five years.

That’s not much of a surprise to abuse researchers Peter Reuter and Jonathan Caulkins. They theorize that “once a drug has acquired a bad reputation, it does not seem prone to a renewed explosion or contagious spread in use.” In other words, young people seem to be getting the message that drugs are not exactly the hallmark of a healthy lifestyle. And that’s a good thing.

Maybe the feds can take this as a signal that the “war” portion of the nation’s drug policy is due for reconsideration. Prohibition didn’t work for alcohol, and it’s not working with drugs to keep users and suppliers from doing business. It’s simply making suppliers richer. We don’t see how that is helping anyone but the dealers. Rather than spending billions trying to shut down the pipeline that brings drugs to the users, it’s time to consider other options, even if we run the risk of being accused of being soft on drugs.