Quigley Leads Letter to OMB Director on Gun Trace Data
Members ask President Obama to Exclude Tiahrt Amendments from his FY14 Budget.
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Representative Mike Quigley (IL-05), Mike Honda (CA-17), Barbara Lee (CA-13), Adam Schiff (CA-28), Jim Moran (VA-08) and 38 other Members of Congress sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget urging them to exclude the Tiahrt Amendments from the President's FY14 Budget. The amendments prohibit the full tracking, by law enforcement, of guns used in crimes.
"While law enforcement officials face a sea of illegal weapons flooding our streets, the Tiahrt Amendments make it virtually impossible for the ATF and others to enforce existing gun laws and crack down on gun trafficking," said Rep. Mike Quigley. "If we want to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people, then we must strengthen law enforcement's ability to do its job by excluding these harmful measures from the President's budget."
The Tiahrt Amendments are policy riders that have been attached to the annual Commerce Justice Science and Related Agencies appropriations bills for the last nine years – without a floor vote or full debate. While the amendments have been modified slightly over the years, this marks one of the first concerted efforts to have them fully excluded from the President's budget. To view the letter to the Office of Management and Budget, please click here.
These riders prohibit the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) from requiring licensed gun dealers to perform inventory checks, require background check records be destroyed within 24 hours, and limit state and local law enforcement authorities' access and use of ATF gun trace data, a vitally important tool in combating illegal gun trafficking. Law enforcement has been struggling for years to fight crime and illegal gun trafficking without these essential enforcement tools in their arsenal, resulting in an increase of illegal gun sales and gun violence in our nation.
Rep. Quigley has also introduced the Trafficking Reduction and Criminal Enforcement (TRACE) Act, which would repeal the Tiahrt Amendments and improve gun tracking data, thereby strengthening law enforcement's ability to enforce current gun laws and crack down on the illegal gun market. To read Rep. Quigley's recent op-ed against the Tiahrt Amendments, please click here.
Rep. Quigley has a long history of pushing for commonsense gun control reforms. He has called on Congress to stand up to the gun lobby in order to address the growing problem of gun violence in America and was on hand when President Obama announced proposals to reduce and prevent gun violence. Recently he helped introduced the Buyback our Safety Act to bolster gun buyback initiatives Rep. Quigley also spearheaded the effort to file a "friend of the court" amicus brief, urging the Supreme Court to allow Chicago's handgun ban to stand.
