BALTIMORE --
Several East Coast cities are launching a new tactic against urban gun violence by creating a database to pool information on gun-related crimes and firearms trafficking.
The program announced Wednesday will combine data from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives with material collected by local agencies, including ballistics tests and information gathered in police interrogations.
The database, expected to be in operation later this year, will make it more difficult for illegal gun dealers to do business throughout the Interstate 95 corridor, said a group that included 11 mayors and various law enforcement officials from cities including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Newark, N.J., and Richmond, Va.
"Violent crime, particularly gun crime, is not just a local problem," Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon said. "It's a national problem."
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who co-founded the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition along with Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, said he thinks the federal government hasn't done enough to curb the use of illegal guns.
"This is exactly the kind of system, incidentally, that the federal government should be building for cities, but since they don't seem to be doing it, we are doing it on our own," he said. "Right now, cities are fighting largely in isolation."
The mayors said it wouldn't cost much to develop the database the cities involved wouldn't need to hire new police or personnel to do the work.
David Kennedy, director of Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, called the database "a brilliant idea" because, he said, ATF trace information alone often does not identify possible gun traffickers. Traces from the ATF frequently go cold once a gun is legally sold for the first time, he said.
The combining of federal and local data, for example, could help authorities spot when certain illegal gun sources are working with a particular drug gang, he said.
However, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association said law enforcement already had more than enough tools to combat gun crimes and the project sounded more like a publicity stunt.
"All Mayor Bloomberg and his fellow mayors seem to do is hold press conferences," said NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam. Referring to Rudy Giuliani, he added, "Mayor Bloomberg's predecessor managed to cut crime in New York simply by enforcing the laws on the books without all these press availabilities."
Bloomberg said the mayors' coalition sent a questionnaire to presidential candidates asking what they would do to get illegal guns off the street, but only John Edwards and Ron Paul responded.
Wire Service
Posted by: justanotherparatrooper
what crap
Posted by: resqjyw0
A database with "material collected by local agencies, including ballistics tests and information gathered in police interrogations" is going to suddenly end illegal gun trafficking...
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