July 17, 2007

EDITORIAL

LAST weekend, about 50 Patersonians gathered for a neighborhood cookout, which wouldn't be remarkable if not for the participants' stated purpose: to organize against the gun violence that has become commonplace on their streets.

The mayor of Paterson is one of more than 40 in New Jersey who have joined the national group Mayors Against Illegal Guns; so, too, are the mayors of such dramatically different communities as Closter, Demarest, Parsippany and Morristown. This is a varied group of people hoping to address what is indisputably a problem, not some politically uniform group of anti-gun zealots. But zealots on the other side are winning.

A few days before the barbecue against gun violence … a congressional committee vote showed the extent of the unreason surrounding this issue in American politics.

At issue was the so-called Tiahrt amendment that, since it was attached to a spending bill four years ago, has prevented the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms from releasing much of its data on gun sales. The coalition of mayors, led by New York City's Michael Bloomberg, had lobbied the House Appropriations Committee for a repeal of the amendment on the grounds that the data would help pinpoint sellers whose guns are falling disproportionately into criminal hands.

The mayors were joined by a number of top law enforcement officials and organizations. In a month that has seen two New York and one New Jersey policemen shot while trying to do their jobs, it's not hard to understand why.

But the gun lobby fears the ATF's information will fuel lawsuits against gun dealers. And as the committee's vote to preserve the amendment ultimately demonstrated, the lobby's extraordinary power has transcended the Democratic takeover of Congress. (New Jersey's members of the committee, Democrat Steve Rothman of Fair Lawn and Republican Rodney Frelinghuysen of Harding, have opposed the Tiahrt amendment.)

Remarkably, the controversy over the Tiahrt amendment intersects with the Second Amendment right to bear arms only tangentially. Repealing it would not have further restricted the use or sale of guns; it merely would have restored access to government information about guns used in violation of existing law.

Keeping this provision in place is no victory for gun rights or those who enjoy exercising them. As Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. of Paterson noted, it's a victory for gun traffickers.