As I wrote the other day, Mayors Against Illegal Guns are urging the repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment.
It restricts the access cities and law enforcement have to data about guns that have been traced.
The amendment has been attached to the Department of Justice appropriations bill each year since the 2003 fiscal year.
The mayors, whose coalition now numbers more than 240 members from more than 40 states, say the legislation prevents law enforcement from tracing illegal guns and stopping weaons traffickers.
For example, according to the coalition of mayors, in February the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives denied a request from Jersey City, N.J., for all “trace data for all firearms involved in crimes in Jersery City,� between 2001 and 2006.
The National Rifle Association says that the amendment protects the privacy of gun owners.
Releasing the information would help anti-gun groups in their lawsuits against the firearms industry, it says, and serve no useful purpose.
The data remains available for law enforcement for a bona fide criminal investigation, it says.
It notes on its Web site that the Fraternal Order of Police opposes the release of the information.

But 25 other police groups support the release of the information, beginning with the International Association of Chiefs of Police. And 75 police chiefs and sheriffs have given their backing on behalf of their jurisdictions.
Plus the author of the amendment, Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Republican from Kansas, believes he is on the same side as Bloomberg and the other mayors, his spokeman told The Associated Press in the middle of the week.
Tiahrt’s spokesman, Chuck Knapp, said the congressman had written a letter to a House subcommittee urging several changes to the language of the measure.
Yonkers’ Phil Amicone and Mount Vernon’s Ernie Davis are both members of the mayors’ coalition.