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Reaction from anti-gunners to Obama’s support for law enforcement on gun tracing is telling
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Because Barack Obama’s 2010 budget request reaffirms a federal statute – the so-called Tiahrt Amendment that protects sensitive gun trace data from the prying eyes of lawsuit-happy mayors and gun control lobby attorneys – gun prohibitionists are wailing and the press can’t even get it right.
A story in Politico suggested that the National Rifle Association, which meets this weekend in Phoenix, AZ for its annual convention, had come to some sort of “consensus” on the legislation. This word frequently translates to “compromise” among some NRA detractors in the gun rights community, but there is no tangible evidence, other than a very vague quote from Chris Cox, executive director of NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, that appeared in the Politico story. That story hinted that NRA had, as my colleague Howard Nemerov put it, “climbed into bed” with the likes of anti-gun New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on the gun trace data issue, when there is nothing to suggest that at all.
Here’s Cox’s quote, according to Politico: “While we do not believe any change is necessary, we appreciate the President’s decision to support law enforcement and not gun control activists.”
Now what does that mean, actually? What did he really say? Anybody see the word “compromise” in there? Anybody see the terms “consensus” or “agreement?” Did Cox say the NRA won’t fight to protect the existing Tiahrt Amendment? No, Politico suggested that, and it appears to be wishful thinking.
(I know Cox and his boss, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. To suggest that either of these guys would compromise with Bloomberg on gun trace data access (much less anything else) is – and I’m being polite here – laughable. If I were a conspiracy theorist, this story would have the makings of a Machiavellian plot to divide the gun rights community on the eve of the NRA convention, with a distracted NRA fighting its own members while anti-gunners roll over them all.)
…such data shall be immune from legal process, shall not be subject to subpoena or other discovery, shall be inadmissible in evidence, and shall not be used, relied on, or disclosed in any manner, nor shall testimony or other evidence be permitted based on the data, in a civil action in any State (including the District of Columbia) or Federal court or in an administrative proceeding… -- President Obama’s 2010 budget request
Politico, and a shrill editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer, further suggested that gun trace data is not currently available to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, and that is a lie. Law enforcement agencies have always had access to that data for ongoing, legitimate criminal investigations. The gun prohibitionist lobby and their cohorts in mayors’ offices around the country have manufactured this myth, that this data has been off-limits to police agencies under provisions in the Tiahrt Amendment, because they despise the restrictions that this law has placed on their ambitions to sue gunmakers into bankruptcy through junk legal actions.
The fact that the anti-gun press and gun prohibition lobby, notably the Freedom States Alliance, are screaming over this apparent revision in the Tiahrt language is proof enough that NRA hasn’t compromised on anything.
…In effect, the President’s budget prohibits this important data from being made accessible to mayors, civic leaders, researchers, gun violence prevention advocates and the American people. – Freedom States Alliance
Nemerov found language in the Obama budget request that forbids the use of trace data in any kind of civil lawsuit, making it “immune from legal process…not…subject to subpoena or other discovery, (and) inadmissible in evidence..”
Bloomberg and his handlers over at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence don’t want to “compromise” on the Tiahrt legislation, anyway. They want it killed, ripped from the law books, crushed.
Adding to their upset, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Monday upheld the dismissal of a “trophy” lawsuit against the gun industry on the grounds that such lawsuits are prohibited under the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. PLCAA was passed to stop junk lawsuits that try to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the criminal acts of thugs and lunatics who misuse firearms. The law was prompted by a string of municipal lawsuits against the gun industry that started in 1999, and by civil actions that included the case of Ileto v. Glock, which the Ninth Circuit ruling dismissed.
The court, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, rejected the plaintiffs’ notion that Glock “sold many guns to police that were unsafe to civilians and ignored government warnings about high-risk distribution channels…” That certainly must have come as news to Glock, not to mention police agencies, because cops are not going to want guns that are “unsafe to ‘civilians’” (a misnomer, since police are civilian law enforcement , with no special military status).
In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit panel upheld the constitutionality of the PLCAA. This is the same circuit that recently held the Second Amendment is incorporated to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process. There is now a conflict between the circuits on Second Amendment incorporation, setting up a showdown in the Supreme Court.
The gun prohibition lobby should recall what happened the last time it pushed a Second Amendment issue in front of the Supreme Court.
Here's what other Gun Rights Examiners are reporting today:
For more info: National Rifle Association.
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