I heard an ad on the radio today from the President of the American Hunters and Shooters Association, Ray Schoenke. The purpose of the ad was to get constituents of Representative Frank Wolf to call him and say we want him oppose the Tiahrt Amendment (actually, it's been changed in the Senate, where it might more properly be called the Shelby Amendment).

For anyone who may be unfamiliar with AHSA, they are, in my opinion, an organization founded to look like they're pro-gun, when in fact they're quite the opposite. If you look into it, you'll find that they're led by well-known and well-documented anti-gunners. And for some reason, anytime you see the words "common sense" associated with gun restrictions, it's a pretty good indicator that they're wanting to take away or otherwise interfere with gun owners' rights.

But that's not the main point here. AHSA shows their true colors in this ad, which repeats the lies the anti-gun folks repeatedly say about the Tiahrt amendment: that it "restricts the access of cities and law enforcement to gun trace data," "ties the hands of law enforcement," and "prevent(s) sharing of trace data with other cities." [Note: these are not quotes from the ad, since I don't have a "total recall" ear, and I can't find the text online, but these are quotes from other sources that AHSA supports in regards to the Tiahrt amendment. Interestingly, AHSA doesn't appear to say anything about Tiahrt on their own site, but provide extensive quotes in press releases and so forth.]

Here's the real skinny: if you look at the actual text* of the amendment, it prohibits the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) from disclosing firearms trace data "to anyone other than a Federal, State, or local law enforcement agency or a prosecutor solely in connection with...a bona fide criminal investigation or prosecution" in their own jurisdiction. Wow, that's really tying the hands of law enforcement, eh?

The truth of the matter is the anti-Tiahrt folks are upset about the part of the amendment which provides that the trace data is "not for use in any civil action or proceeding." What the Mayors Against Illegal Guns (aka, Bloomberg's buddies) and other anti-Tiahrt organizations are upset about is that the amendment keeps them from suing gun manufacturers and dealers out of existence.

The Acting Director of the ATF, Michael Sullivan, has stated, "Once a requesting agency receives law-enforcement-sensitive trace data from ATF, it becomes the agency's data to disseminate and share with other law-enforcement entities as it deems appropriate."

Sullivan goes on to say, "Let me be clear: neither the congressional language nor ATF rules prohibit the sharing of trace data with law enforcement conducting criminal investigations, or place any restrictions on the sharing of trace data with other jurisdictions once it is in the hands of state or local law enforcement. In fact, multi-jurisdictional trace data is also utilized by ATF and shared with fellow law-enforcement agencies to identify firearm-trafficking trends and leads. Additionally, nothing prohibits ATF from releasing our own reports that analyze trace-data trends that could be used by law enforcement."

These folks aren't trying to give us the truth, nor do they want us to use our heads when considering gun issues such as the Tiahrt or Shelby Amendments. They want to feed us a bit of information, and then they use emotional rhetoric and a few lies misrepresentations to persuade us to support them. Don't fall prey to their manipulations. If they have to use these tactics to convince people to agree with them, doesn't that alone shed some light on the accuracy of their positions?

* N.B. This link goes to a copy of the language from a couple of years ago, but as I understand it, it's substantially unchanged from then. Besides, the link goes to the site of a group that wants to eliminate the Tiahrt Amendment, so if it's good enough for them to oppose it, it should be good enough for me to use it to support the amendment.