cuchulainn
Member
Good.
Interesting quote from DiFi, though: "Long standing" = The anti-gun Clinton justice deparment looked the other way.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/02/28/MN40941.DTL
Interesting quote from DiFi, though: "Long standing" = The anti-gun Clinton justice deparment looked the other way.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/02/28/MN40941.DTL
U.S. threatens to sue state for using gun database
Justice Dept. wants only dealers, not cops, to have access
Robert Salladay, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
Sacramento -- The U.S. Department of Justice has threatened to criminally prosecute California's top firearms official over the state's continued use of a federal databank to hunt down illegal gun users, The Chronicle has learned.
The threat marks a significant escalation in the war between California law enforcement and U.S. officials over gun control and background checks. State officials said that until John Ashcroft became U.S. attorney general in 2001, California's use of the databank was not questioned.
Federal authorities believe the list of convicted felons, drug dealers, suspected terrorists, spouse beaters, illegal immigrants and others should only be used to help gun dealers determine if someone is allowed to buy a gun, not police investigating other gun-control violations.
Gun-control advocates say it's part of a pattern.
"At a time when Ashcroft is pushing for maximum police powers in almost all areas of our lives, the one exception is guns," said Luis Tolley, Western regional director with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "They are going in the opposite direction."
Now, in an unprecedented action, the chief of California's firearms division says he was threatened with federal action for a criminal violation if California continues to use the federal database to search for illegal gun users who violated the law in other states.
"We understood it as a potential criminal action," said Randy Rossi, firearms chief for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, "and our response back to them was we understand what you are saying and we think public safety is paramount and you take whatever step is necessary."
If U.S. authorities deny access to some of the FBI's computers, state officials believe they will be forced to return guns to violent criminals. Thousands of background checks would be prohibited every year, state officials said.
THREAT CAME IN CALL
Lockyer's office said the threat of legal retaliation came from an attorney in the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division during a conference call several weeks ago with Rossi and other California officials.
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has requested an explanation from FBI Director Robert Mueller on what she called a restrictive interpretation of the law that overturns a "long-standing history of conducting such checks."
The FBI wrote back acknowledging there were differing opinions and promised a further review by U.S. Department of Justice attorneys. Spokesmen for Ashcroft, who controls the FBI, did not return a call seeking comment.
The central dispute is over California's use of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. The computer system was installed in 1998 to allow firearms dealers to check, supposedly within 30 seconds, whether someone is prohibited from owning a gun.
The state uses the system to conduct background checks for the gun dealers but also to determine if a confiscated weapon should be returned or if someone has a large number of illegally owned firearms.
California has its own databank of people prohibited from owning guns. But law enforcement also checks NICS to see if a suspect has legal problems in other states. Lockyer's office checks the NICS nationwide system about 5,000 times a year on behalf of police, sheriffs and their own investigators.
DATA FROM OTHER STATES
A suspect may be clear in California but convicted of offenses in another state or federal court, but law enforcement would not find that out in many cases, gun-control advocates and state officials fear.
"There needs to be one central depository of felonies, of people who are prohibited, the mentally disturbed and the like," said Tolley with the Brady Campaign.
California officials believe Ashcroft and the FBI are intent on scuttling a new state law that allows Lockyer to investigate people who may illegally have large stores of guns that are being undetected.
The so-called armed and prohibited law targets people recently rejected for gun ownership during a background check because they have a criminal record or arrest.
Rather than stopping there, Lockyer's office is using a newly created state database and three separate federal databases to look for past gun purchases in other states -- and then going after those guns.
OFF-LIMITS TO STATE
Ashcroft's office has told Lockyer that all three federal databases -- NICS,
the National Crime Information Center and the Interstate Identification Index -- are off-limits to his agents if they are using them for the armed and prohibited program, state officials said.
For regular criminal background checks outside of the armed and prohibited program, federal authorities are allowing California access to two of the databases. But they want to deny Lockyer's office access to NICS, unless the state is making a background check for a gun dealer or pawn shop.
State authorities say they like using the more convenient NICS system because it contains all the information from the two other criminal databases under federal control, as well as unique information that other databanks do not track.
The NICS-only information includes the names of illegal immigrants, possible terrorists, people classified as mental defectives or who have renounced their citizenship, people dishonorably discharged from the military, and convicted drug addicts or dealers.
PUSHING POLITICAL POINT
Gun-rights supporters believe Lockyer, a Democrat who plans to run for California governor in 2006, is pushing the issue to make a political point and highlight the differences between the Bush administration and his own record on gun control.
The National Rifle Association said the NICS databank appears clearly designed for use by gun dealers, not for police investigating crimes. The other databanks, they said, can be used to track down criminal records in other states.
"It seems to me that they are trying to make this into a political issue," said Andrew Arulanandam, NRA spokesman.
Georgia officials say they also have been threatened by federal authorities over interpretation of U.S. law concerning criminal background checks. Georgia was denying gun purchases to people arrested for crimes but not charged or convicted.
In a letter last year to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the FBI warned that the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act and Georgia law do not allow "naked arrests" without an indictment or conviction to be used to deny a gun purchase. The FBI said it was "very interested in the status of any corrective action."
Georgia complied with the FBI, and the number of firearms denied to suspected felons dropped significantly. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution estimated that every day an average of 17 or 18 people facing felony charges now are given permission to buy a gun in Georgia.
"We viewed it as a threat," John Bankhead, spokesman for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said about the FBI's letter. "We had done this for six years without an issue until the new administration came in, and they pulled this on us."
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle
