BONNIE PFISTER
Associated Press
March 28, 2006
[Trenton, NJ] - Two federal legislators from New Jersey said Monday they will introduce proposals to once again make public data that is collected about firearms used in crimes.
Sen. Robert Menendez and Rep. Steve Rothman, both Democrats, said they would introduce legislation this week to undo restrictions on the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' ability to share information ongun tracing with the public.
"There is absolutely no good reason to hide gun crime data from the public," Rothman said in a joint statement with Menendez. A member of the House Appropriations Committee, Rothman added that he would work to see the ATF use its resources to inform the public about gun trafficking and help prosecutors enforce the law.
While New Jersey has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, ATF data from 2001 the last time the bureau publicly released the information indicated that firearms used in Garden State crimes overwhelmingly came from out of state.
The author of the amendment that Menendez and Rothman are seeking to overturn said ATF already is permitted to release that information to the public.
Chuck Knapp, a spokesman for Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., told The Associated Press on Monday that the ATF is free to release aggregate information about guns used in crimes, such as percentage breakdown of where federal registries say guns were originally sold.
Knapp said Tiahrt's concern was that names and addresses of police officers and informants could be released with the data, and that the congressman introduced information in the 2005 appropriations bill clarifying that aggregate data may be released.
Regional ATF spokesman John Hagemen, however, said that's not his understanding. A 2005 directive to his agency states: "No funds appropriated under this or any other Act with respect to any fiscal year may be used to disclose part or all of the contents of the Firearms Trace System Database maintained by the National Tracing Center of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives."
Prosecutors in Camden County two weeks ago released ATF information to a reporter. It showed that of the 252 traceable guns used in crimes there in 2003-2004, 36 percent came from Pennsylvania, and 50 percent from the Carolinas, Florida, Virginia and Georgia.
But Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said that data has not been forthcoming to him since the 2001 data was released.
"There was no big announcement," he said. "We don't get it in the normal course. We have to make a specific request, if you have a certain targeted investigation."
DeFazio said the information would be useful for his office and should be open to the public as well.
It's a public right-to-know situation. This data is being compiled with taxpayer dollars. The general public should know where these guns arecoming from that are flooding our cities."
