Mayors' Request: Police Need More Access to Gun Ownership Records

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January 23, 2007 1:07 PM

Fifty mayors gathered in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to demand the elimination of a law that restricts the ability of local police to trace ownership of guns used in crimes.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it was "ideological nonsense" to suggest the ability of police to trace criminals' weapons would infringe on the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

The law, a temporary amendment, has been attached to House appropriations bills since 2003. Police officials say the law prevents them from investigating the connection of the gun to crimes other than the one in which the weapon was seized and from sharing the informaton with other cities.

The head of the American Hunters and Shooters Association, Ray Schoenke, said that gun rights "extremists," including the National Rifle Association, have taken positions that have "tarnished" the reputations of hunters and shooters.

The NRA tells its rural members that "guns purchased in their backyard and used in violent crime are not their problem," said Schoenke. He is the first gun rights advocate to join the mayors in their cause.

"Our coalition has refused to fall into the same old trap that this is an either-or issue, either respect the rights of gun owners or keep illegal guns out of the hands of criminals,"  Bloomberg said of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition.

In conjunction with the mayors' meeting, New York Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel, who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, along with three other congressmen, announced a coalition in support of the mayors' legislative priority to eliminate the restrictions of the law.

Each year 30,000 people are killed by guns in the United States.

"Violent crime is again on the rise," said New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, "even in New York where overall the crime rate was down last year, we saw an increase in homicides and shootings."