Bush Administration Effort to Hide Truth About Industry Links to Gun Crime

To: National Desk

Contact: Peter Hamm of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 202-898-0792

WASHINGTON, May 11 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence today released a report documenting a concerted effort by the gun lobby, its allies in Congress, and the Bush Administration to suppress crime gun trace data exposing the complicity of gun dealers in supplying the illegal gun market in order to aid gunmakers in civil court cases and shield the industry from negative public attention.

The Brady Center's report reveals for the first time that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), during the Bush Administration, deliberately withheld from the public information in a key internal document on the gun dealers who supply the most guns to crime -- a document that ATF shared in full with the gun industry.

The Brady Center report, Without A Trace: How the Gun Lobby and the Government Suppress the Truth About Guns and Crime, tells the story of ATF's efforts, during the Clinton Administration, to expand the tracing of crime guns confiscated by law enforcement authorities to determine the origin of crime guns and their path into the hands of criminals. A crime gun trace tracks the sales history of the gun, from manufacturer, to distributor, to retailer, to first retail purchaser.

During the Clinton years, ATF released information from its database of crime gun traces showing that thousands of guns move quickly from a relatively small number of licensed gun dealers into the illegal market. For example, ATF trace data showed that only one percent of the Nation's licensed gun dealers account for almost 60 percent of crime guns. These findings were threatening to the gun industry, by suggesting that the illegal market is supplied not primarily by stolen guns and "street sources," but by a small number of reckless gun dealers who facilitate gun trafficking through straw purchases, large-volume gun sales and outright corruption.

cont'd...

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=65651

to hide for the Bush terror network.

The entire industry is corrupt.

which is worth exactly as much as posting a press release by the NRA...

One thing trace data does show is how rarely rifles are used in crimes...betcha the Bradyites ignore that one...

And the administration for withholding information? I just want to be clear.

Then tell us it doesn't read like a self-serving propaganda hit piece.

http://www.bradycenter.org/xshare/pdf/reports/giw.pdf