Jul 10, 2007 8:55 pm US/Eastern
Bloomberg Rips 'Soft' Anti-Illegal Gun Bill
Sounds Off On Controversial Tiahrt Amendment
by Marcia Kramer
WASHINGTON (CBS) ―
Mayor Michael Bloomberg may seem like he's obsessed with congestion pricing, but he's just as committed to getting illegal guns off the street. So much so, he was in Washington on Tuesday trying to force the passage of pro-cop gun legislation.
Bloomberg's anti-gun crusade has won him a lot of powerful enemies -- like the National Rifle Association for example, but he doesn't care. He's in Washington to stop what he thinks is another bad gun bill.
"The Tiahrt amendment is the most anti-cop, soft-on-crime law, Congress has passed in years," Bloomberg said.
Bloomberg has been trying to torpedo the so-called Tiahrt amendment for years because it restricts the access of cities and law enforcement agents to a key crime fighting tool -- gun trace info.
"It prevents the police officers from tracking the illegal gun trader and locking up those who engage in it," Bloomberg said.
Since it was first tacked on to the Department of Justice appropriation bill in 2003, the Tiahrt amendment has required police to certify that every trace will be used for a specific criminal investigation rather than a wider effort -- such as establishing gun trafficking patterns.
"Every day our police confront more powerful and more deadly weapons in the hands of criminals," said Democratic Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland. "They deserve our help in getting these weapons and these people off the streets."
New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly, who had two of his men gunned down Monday in Brooklyn, is also on board.
"To deny us access to gun trace information makes it much more difficult to upset, disrupt the iron pipeline that brings guns to our cities," Kelly said.
The House Appropriation Committee is scheduled to vote on the Tiahrt amendment on Thursday. A number of New Yorkers are against it, including Long Island Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, who lost her husband to gun violence in a Long Island Rail Road shooting.
Since he started his crusade, Mayor Bloomberg has amassed the support over 225 mayors in his "Mayors Against Guns Coalition."
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