July 14, 2007

Living and working in such proximity to the media capital of the world, the scene of yet another week of officials' post-shooting press conferences, teary-eyed testimonials from grieving co-workers and family, and heartpounding searches for dangerous and desperate men - the logical aftermath of a society's treating handguns like religious sacrament - one might assume that everybody sees the same human waste, the same anguish, and would be sick of seeing it again and again. How one would be so miserably wrong.

Sick of it could well describe the mindset of Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone and his police commissioner, Edmund Hartnett, who joined New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in Washington earlier this week, fresh on the heels of the shootings of young NYPD officers Herman Yan and Russel Timoshenko. The New York officials were in that so-divorced-from-it-all capital to press for changes in a law that bars Washington from sharing information about gun merchants, most notably the small minority whose guns habitually end up in the hands of thugs. But common sense was not on their side, as a key House panel declined to lift a finger on behalf of the likes of officers Yan and Timoshenko, or anyone sick of gun violence.

A New York crime

There was no better ammunition for the cause than the fresh evidence out of Brooklyn, where the officers were shot during a traffic stop early Monday. Yan was saved by his bullet-proof vest but Timoshenko was struck in the face, twice, and suffered grave wounds. Hard to miss throughout the week were the TV testimonials to his good character and bravery, or news of the manhunt that eventually ensnared three men, each with an illegal weapon of his very own. There was a .45-caliber pistol originally purchased in Virginia, a 9mm semiautomatic purchased in Alabama and a Tec-9 bought in Tennessee.

How on Earth did these weapons end up in these hands? That's exactly the kind of information that Amicone and Hartnett, Bloomberg and the rest of the Washington visitors hoped to pry out of the federal government. … In aggregate, the data show that contrary to popular myth, most guns used by criminals aren't stolen or smuggled into the country; they are purchased at federally licensed gun stores, often by "straw purchasers" - people who buy on behalf of people barred from buying.

On willful blindness

Bloomberg's troops have run sting operations designed to pinpoint "rogue dealers" who are so accommodating to straw purchasers. For example, a single pawn shop in Georgia, the subject of a NYC lawsuit, can lay claim to 48 guns later linked to crimes in New York. Stop those transfers and a society makes a real dent in gun crimes - without taking a single gun out of the hands of a law-abiding gun owner. But getting at the data on rogue dealers is problematic; under the 2003 Tiahrt Amendment passed by Congress, the ATF is barred from revealing information from its tracing database, including information about specific shops. The database would no doubt be a roadmap for local governments tracing the path of gun violence.

Based on a 2000 report, 40 percent of all crime-tarnished weapons traced by the bureau originated from just 332 gun dealers nationwide. "That means that less than 1 percent of the nation's gun stores supply nearly half of all weapons traced in connection with a crime," the AP said. (Another report had almost three-fifths of all guns used in crime sold by just 1 percent of dealers.) Wouldn't a thinking society want to know more about that 1 percent? Do more to end the slipshod practices and "safeguards" employed by the worse offenders?

Paying the price

"Most of our violent crime in Yonkers can be traced back to illegal guns, many of which come from small dealers out of state," Hartnett said earlier this week. "The Tiahrt Amendment is the most anti-cop, soft-on-crime law Congress has passed in years," Bloomberg said. "It prevents our police officers from tracking the illegal gun trade - and locking up those who engage in it."

Notwithstanding the fresh shootings, a House committee - Democrats and Republicans alike - on Thursday refused to lift the information ban, affirming the willful blindness embraced by the National Rifle Association, which helped put the restrictions in place. Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., a gun rights advocate, said easing the data restrictions could lead to the disclosure of police officers' identities. "What the Tiahrt amendment does is protect those who protect us," Tiahrt said.

We wonder if Officer Timoshenko caught any of that.