FBI to Create Study Group on Guns, Watch Lists
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
FBI Director Robert Mueller is forming a study group to review the law that allegedly allowed suspected terrorists to buy guns in the United States after they cleared background checks required by the Brady Act.
According to Associated Press, Mueller unveiled his plan to form the Department of Justice (DOJ) working group, which will include the FBI, in a letter sent Mar. 23 to Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ). The group will also review the government report issued earlier in March that said more than 40 terror suspects were able to buy firearms in the US last year because background checks showed they had no felony convictions, were not illegal immigrants, were not dishonorably discharged, had not been committed to a mental hospital and had not been convicted of domestic abuse.
The day the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report was released, Mueller told a House subcommittee that perhaps the law could be altered. In his letter to Lautenberg, who had requested the GAO study and proposes to make records of firearms purchases approved by NICS available for 10 years, Mueller said, “I believe a review of the law regarding the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is warranted given the findings of the GAO report.”
The DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy will spearhead the review, and will make recommendations to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Mueller wrote.
Lautenberg told reporters on Mar. 24 that the “FBI knows that terrorist access to guns in our country is a real problem.
“Hopefully the FBI can talk some sense into the rest of the Bush Administration and put the safety and security of the American people ahead of the interests of the gun lobby,” Lautenberg said.
When the report was released, the National Rifle Association had said the law protects Americans from terrorists while allowing citizens the freedom to own guns. On Thursday, NRA spokeswoman Kelly Hobbs said the NRA worked last year with the Justice Department to ensure that people on the FBI’s internal terror watch lists are cross-checked.
“We will certainly work with the Department of Justice, the (Bush) Administration, and congressional leaders to review the information and address terrorism concerns while remembering our core mission to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans,” Hobbs said.
The GAO report said that from Feb. 3 through June 20 last year, 35 known or suspected terrorists bought guns in the United States. From July 1 to Oct. 31 last year, 12 more were allowed to buy firearms.
Actually, the GAO report said that during a nine-month period last year, 58 firearms applications were received from terror suspects whose names appear on watch lists at gun shops around the country. According to the report, 47 of those permits were approved.
Ironically, the names of the buyers weren’t revealed to the GAO because they appear on secret FBI watch lists of suspects. At the time the individuals obtained their guns, they were merely suspects whose names had been added to various government watch lists and as far as anyone has revealed, they are still only suspects. They still haven’t committed any crimes.
Many reporters and columnists have interpreted the report to suggest that the government and the NICS systems is allowing terror suspects to arm themselves on the streets of America, and have linked this to what they term, America’s “porous gun laws.”
However, it is not clear whether some would amend the Gun Control Act to include “suspects”—people not yet even charged—whether garden variety criminals or terrorist—to the list of prohibited persons who cannot be allowed to purchase a rifle, shotgun or handgun, or whether the Brady Act needs to be amended to make the government’s confidential “watch lists” of such suspects available to the FBI’s NICS system technicians as part of the standard background screening.
Return to Archive Index