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VPC on Ashcroft Proposal to Destroy NICS Records
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Violence Policy Center Response to General Accounting Office
Letter on Ashcroft Proposal to Destroy NICS Gun Records Immediately
To: National Desk
Contact: Naomi Seligman of the Violence Policy Center (VPC),
202-822-8200, ext. 105; e-mail: nseligman@vpc.org
WASHINGTON, April 11 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In response to the
release of the General Accounting Office's (GAO) letter to Sen.
Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), the Violence Policy Center released the
following statement by VPC Litigation Director and Legislative
Counsel Mathew Nosanchuk:
The preliminary results of an investigation conducted by the
General Accounting Office (GAO) into the effects of Attorney
General John Ashcroft's proposal to destroy records of approved gun
sales within 24 hours confirm what the Violence Policy Center (VPC)
has been saying all along. The VPC warned that immediate
destruction of records of approved gun sales immediately will put
guns into the hands of felons, fugitives, domestic abusers, and
other persons prohibited by law from getting them. GAO compared the
effectiveness of the Clinton Administration rule that allows
records generated by the Brady Law's National Instant Criminal
Background Check System (NICS) to be kept for 90 days to an
Ashcroft proposal that would mandate destruction of the records
within 24 hours.
In a letter reporting on an investigation requested by Sen.
Durbin, GAO stated: "(N)ext-day destruction of NICS records could
inhibit the ability of law enforcement to retrieve firearms from
persons who were approved to purchase firearms but should not have
been." Under current law, the gun-purchase records are kept for 90
days. This enables law enforcement to take action if a prohibited
person is approved in error. According to GAO, in a four-month
period, the FBI used records more than one day old but less than 90
days old "to initiate over 100 firearm-retrieval actions." Under
the Ashcroft proposal, the records allowing the retrievals would
have been destroyed.
The Violence Policy Center recognized this fact last year when
it sued Attorney General Ashcroft for unlawfully suspending the
final regulation that would have authorized the records to be kept
for 90 days. It is one reason why the VPC strongly criticized the
Attorney General for proposing that records should be destroyed
within 24 hours. The VPC also condemned Ashcroft's refusal to
abandon his proposal for immediate destruction after it was
revealed in December 2001 that he was not allowing these records to
be used to identify whether potential terrorists had purchased guns
from federally licensed dealers.
---
For more information, visit the VPC's Web sites
http://www.ashcroftgunwatch.org/ and http://www.vpc.org/ The
Violence Policy Center is a national non-profit educational
organization working to stop gun death and injury in America.
http://www.usnewswire.com
-0-
/U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/
04/11 15:26
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/first/0411-147.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Letter on Ashcroft Proposal to Destroy NICS Gun Records Immediately
To: National Desk
Contact: Naomi Seligman of the Violence Policy Center (VPC),
202-822-8200, ext. 105; e-mail: nseligman@vpc.org
WASHINGTON, April 11 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In response to the
release of the General Accounting Office's (GAO) letter to Sen.
Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), the Violence Policy Center released the
following statement by VPC Litigation Director and Legislative
Counsel Mathew Nosanchuk:
The preliminary results of an investigation conducted by the
General Accounting Office (GAO) into the effects of Attorney
General John Ashcroft's proposal to destroy records of approved gun
sales within 24 hours confirm what the Violence Policy Center (VPC)
has been saying all along. The VPC warned that immediate
destruction of records of approved gun sales immediately will put
guns into the hands of felons, fugitives, domestic abusers, and
other persons prohibited by law from getting them. GAO compared the
effectiveness of the Clinton Administration rule that allows
records generated by the Brady Law's National Instant Criminal
Background Check System (NICS) to be kept for 90 days to an
Ashcroft proposal that would mandate destruction of the records
within 24 hours.
In a letter reporting on an investigation requested by Sen.
Durbin, GAO stated: "(N)ext-day destruction of NICS records could
inhibit the ability of law enforcement to retrieve firearms from
persons who were approved to purchase firearms but should not have
been." Under current law, the gun-purchase records are kept for 90
days. This enables law enforcement to take action if a prohibited
person is approved in error. According to GAO, in a four-month
period, the FBI used records more than one day old but less than 90
days old "to initiate over 100 firearm-retrieval actions." Under
the Ashcroft proposal, the records allowing the retrievals would
have been destroyed.
The Violence Policy Center recognized this fact last year when
it sued Attorney General Ashcroft for unlawfully suspending the
final regulation that would have authorized the records to be kept
for 90 days. It is one reason why the VPC strongly criticized the
Attorney General for proposing that records should be destroyed
within 24 hours. The VPC also condemned Ashcroft's refusal to
abandon his proposal for immediate destruction after it was
revealed in December 2001 that he was not allowing these records to
be used to identify whether potential terrorists had purchased guns
from federally licensed dealers.
---
For more information, visit the VPC's Web sites
http://www.ashcroftgunwatch.org/ and http://www.vpc.org/ The
Violence Policy Center is a national non-profit educational
organization working to stop gun death and injury in America.
http://www.usnewswire.com
-0-
/U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/
04/11 15:26
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/first/0411-147.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
That'd be grreat!!!
C-
Suffer Not This King
Howso' great their clamour, whatso'er their claim, Suffer not the old King under any name! He shall mark our goings, question whence we came, Set his guards about us, as in Freedom's name.