Another Anti-editorial St. Louis Post Dispatch

[Jeff White]

This one at leats is more factual then the one the New York Times printed. At least they got the part about the FBI keeping the records right.....Now if they'd only recognize Americans for Gun Safety as the leftist, grabber institution it is....

Jeff

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...66186256E23003E936C?OpenDocument&Headline=Don't+weaken+Brady

Don't weaken Brady

01/22/2004

THE OMNIBUS APPROPRIATIONS BILL now before the Senate is supposed to concern itself with funding government agencies and services. But it's more than that. Tucked inside this 1,448-page spending bill is a provision that would severely weaken the government's ability to track illegal guns. The provision was sponsored in the House version of the spending bill by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan.

The provision would require the FBI to destroy gun-buyer records 24 hours after a weapon is sold. The Brady law now in effect requires the FBI to keep these records for up to 90 days. That requirement should prevail. Without it, the agency can't review gun sales and track missing weapons in an effort to keep them out of the hands of criminals, the mentally ill, violent spouses and terrorists.

The National Rifle Association is playing the privacy card, arguing that the government has no business building a database on law-abiding gun owners. But in a post-Sept. 11 world, the FBI would benefit from having such a database to help it track - or thwart - a suspected terrorist who purchased a weapon. Surely records on gun buyers are at least as important in the war on terror as book-borrowing records from public libraries.

A second disturbing part of Tiahrt's provision would prevent the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms from issuing what the NRA calls a "burdensome" rule requiring gun dealers to take regular inventories of their stock. The ATF says the rule would help it make dealers keep better track of their weapons. The military-style rifle used by the D.C.-area snipers in 2002 had been stolen from a gun store in Washington state. The store owner apparently checked his inventory so seldom that he never noticed this theft or that of more than 230 other "missing" firearms. The ATF says the high number of inventory errors at some gun stores is a serious problem because missing firearms can't be traced. That's a compelling practical argument and makes the case for issuing the rule.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence should keep the pressure on senators to resist the NRA's efforts to gut federal gun-control rules. A new study by the centrist Americans for Gun Safety Foundation has bolstered the Brady Campaign. The study says 120 firearms dealers, including three in the St. Louis area, are providing a disproportionately large share of weapons used in crimes, a finding some dealers dispute. The foundation is calling for a "High Crime Dealer Watch List" to alert the public about such dealers. That could put more pressure on gun dealers to be more selective about who their customers are.

Missouri and Illinois senators should support laws that help the government track illegal weapons by demanding that the NRA-backed rider be cut from the appropriations bill. On Tuesday, Missouri GOP Sens. Christopher S. "Kit" Bond and Jim Talent voted to cut off debate and pass the bill with the rider intact. So did Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., voted against the bill. Republicans should join the effort to yank this NRA-backed attempt to undercut the Brady law.

 

[Partisan Ranger]

"That could put more pressure on gun dealers to be more selective about who their customers are."


HUH? You mean, besides running a background check and seeing if the buyer is a felon?

A gun dealer doing ANY weeding out beyond that would be DISCRIMINATING against people he thinks look like crooks!

It must be nice to not actually think about complicated issues like guns, you idiots. Life is much simpler that way.

 

[Jeff White]

It doesn't matter, the spending bill passed intact

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CONGRESS_SPENDING?SITE=MOSTP&SECTION=US

Jan 22, 4:40 PM EST

Congress Passes $373B Spending Bill

By ALAN FRAM
Associated Press Writer

Friar reports Senate Democrat leader Tom Daschle is ending the fight against a 373 (b) billion dollar spending bill. (Audio)

WASHINTON (AP) -- The Senate overcame Democratic delaying tactics Thursday and sent President Bush an overdue $373 billion bill financing a vast swath of government and bearing a bushel of victories for the White House.

Senators approved the measure 65-28 a month after House passage. The bill finances agriculture, veterans and most other domestic programs for the budget year that began Oct. 1 - nearly four months ago.

The mammoth measure also protects Bush administration policies on overtime pay, media ownership and food labeling. Angry over those issues, Democrats had succeeded on Tuesday in blocking a vote on final passage.

But on Thursday's showdown, the chamber voted 61-32 to end Democratic delays that had slowed the measure since last month, one more than the 60 votes needed. With the White House and GOP leaders adamant about not changing the measure, enough Democrats succumbed to its tons of home-state projects and spending boosts for popular programs.

"It is time to move on," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. "The country demands that we complete action on this bill."

Sixteen Democrats and 45 Republicans voted Thursday to end the delays. They included 11 Democrats and two Republicans who voted the other way on Tuesday, plus two other Democrats who missed Tuesday's vote. Two Republicans who voted Tuesday to end debate were absent Thursday.

One of the vote switchers, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said while Tuesday's vote gave Democrats the chance to highlight "egregious provisions" in the measure, "I think the weight falls more heavily on getting the bill finished and getting the money out there."

The bill would let the administration proceed with new rules that would let companies pay overtime to fewer white collar workers, and allow media conglomerates to own more television stations.

It would also postpone for two years a requirement that meat and many other foods sold in stores have labels identifying the country they come from. With last month's discovery that a Washington state cow had mad cow disease, many Democrats hoped they had gained leverage that would let them remove the labeling delay, but the White House and House GOP leaders refused to budge.

"Take it or leave it," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., describing what he said was the GOP's attitude on the bill. "This is one senator who's going to leave it because of what it will do to working families and women and veterans of this country."

Had Democrats succeeded in blocking the measure, Republican leaders were threatening to replace it with a bare-bones bill that would have financed most of government at last year's levels - about $6 billion less than the stalled legislation.

That would have meant dramatically less money for fighting AIDS overseas, the FBI and other anti-terrorism efforts, and many other programs. It was unclear whether GOP leaders would have ever gained sufficient votes to push such a bill through Congress.

Policy triumphs for Bush in the bill include eased requirements for federal gun records, the nation's first federally financed school vouchers, and language letting him contract out more government work to contractors.

The bill also has money for Bush priorities including fighting AIDS in Africa, aid for countries instituting democratic reforms, the AmeriCorps national service program and funds for disabled students.

It will also let Bush claim that he held expenditures in the 13 spending bills to just a 3 percent increase this year - though billions in new expenses for war or other efforts could come in the next few months.

With the presidential and congressional elections looming in November, opponents seemed eager to snatch victory from defeat by keeping the issues alive into the campaigns.

"We're not giving up," said Bill Samuel, legislative director of the labor organization AFL-CIO. "We'll continue our efforts on the next bill."

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Democrats would use special Senate procedures to try forcing a vote on a resolution rejecting the overtime regulations when they take effect.

The package wraps seven spending bills into one, covering 11 Cabinet departments and scores of other agencies, plus foreign aid and the District of Columbia government. Six other spending measures - covering the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies - have been enacted.

Internal GOP disagreements over spending and policy issues prevented Congress from finishing the bill on time last year. Republicans had vowed to finish the measure on time to underscore their ability to run the government, but their failure to do so probably won't register on a public more concerned about the economy, war and terrorism.

Lawmakers like the bill's increases for veterans' health care, schools, highway projects, farm conservation efforts, improved local election systems, and biomedical research.

The measure also has 7,932 so-called earmarks - for local items like museum upgrades and agricultural research - costing $10.7 billion, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that pushes for lower spending.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved.