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With our newly found tranparency in Government foremost in mind , Mike insisted that I inform everybody .
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Hearings
Terrorists and Guns: The Nature of the Threat and Proposed Reforms
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
10:00 AM
Dirksen Senate Office Building, room 342
Witnesses
Panel 1
* The Honorable Frank R. Lautenberg, U.S. Senate
* The Honorable Peter T. King, U.S. House of Representatives
* The Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor, City of New York
* The Honorable Raymond W. Kelly, Police Commissioner, City of New York
Panel 2
* Daniel D. Roberts, Assistant Director, Criminal Justice Information Services Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice
* Eileen R. Larence, Director, Homeland Security and Justice, U.S. Government Accountability Office
* Sandy Jo MacArthur, Assistant Chief, Office of Administrative Services, Los Angeles Police Department
* Aaron Titus, Privacy Director, Liberty Coalition
Background information:
In February 2004, then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales directed the
Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Policy (OLP) to form a
working group to review federal firearms and explosives
laws*particularly in regard to NICS background checks*to
determine whether additional authority should be sought from Congress to
prevent firearms and explosives transfers to known and suspected
terrorists. In the 111th Congress, Senator Frank Lautenberg and
Representative Peter King have reintroduced a bill (S. 1317/H.R. 2159)
that would authorize the Attorney General to deny the transfer of
firearms or the issuance of firearms and explosives licenses to known or
suspected terrorists. This bill reportedly reflects a legislative
proposal developed by DOJ.
In general, this bill would amend the Gun Control Act (GCA) to grant
the Attorney General the discretionary authority to deny a firearm
transfer or state-issued firearms permit to any prospective transferee
or permittee through Brady background checks, if the Attorney General
determines that the prospective transferee is known (or appropriately
suspected) to be or to have been engaged in conduct constituting,
preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism, or providing
material support or resources for terrorism, and has a reasonable belief
that the prospective transferee may use the firearm in connection with
terrorism (proposed 18 U.S.C. §§ 922A and B). The bill would make
similar amendments to the provisions of the GCA governing the processes
by which federal firearms dealer licenses are issued and revoked (18
U.S.C. §§ 923(d) and (e)).
The bill would also amend the GCA provision (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)) that
enumerates several classes of persons who are prohibited from shipping,
transporting, possessing, or receiving a firearm or ammunition, so that
it would include persons who were the subject of terrorism-related
determinations (described above). The bill would amend the GCA provision
(18 U.S.C. § 922(d)) that prohibits any person from transferring a
firearm to any prohibited person to include any person who was the
subject of a terrorism-related determination as well. In addition, the
bill would amend the NICS background check provisions (18 U.S.C. §
922(t)) to reflect that the Attorney General would have this new
discretionary authority under the proposed 18 U.S.C. §§ 922A and B.
With regard to NICS denials of firearms transfers or state-issued
firearms permits based upon terrorist watch list hits and subsequent
determinations by the Attorney General, the bill would amend the Brady
Act (P.L. 103-159) to allow a denied prospective transferee to request
from the Attorney General the reasons for the denial, but it would also
give the Attorney General the authority to withhold those reasons if he
determines that such a disclosure would compromise national security.
The bill would make a similar amendment to the Brady Act in regard to
correction of erroneous information.
Furthermore, the bill would amend the GCA provision that addresses
erroneous denials (18 U.S.C. § 925A), to allow any person denied a
firearms-related transfer or permit to challenge that determination in
U.S. court within 60 days of that determination. This proposed amendment
would require the court to sustain the Attorney General’s
determination upon a showing by the U.S. Government a preponderance of
evidence standard that the determination satisfied the proposed
provisions described above (18 U.S.C. §§ 922A and B). The proposed
amendment would also allow the court to rely upon summaries or redacted
versions of documents underlying those determinations, if those
documents contained information that could compromise national security,
but it would also allow a court to review the full, undisclosed
documents ex parte and in camera at the court’s option or on the
motion of the petitioner (denied person). The proposed amendment would
also allow the court to determine whether the summaries or redacted
versions of the documents were fair and accurate representations of the
underlying documents; however, it would not allow the court to overturn
the Attorney General’s determination based on the full and un-redacted
documents.
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