By Eight Mayors of Florida
May 11, 2009

Posted on Sat, Apr. 18, 2009

The safety and stability of our communities is intrinsic in our responsibilities to the public, and it is time for elected officials throughout Florida to stand together in the face of the rising violence in our state. We may hail from different political situations and diverse constituencies, but we all strongly agree that public safety and illegal guns should be a top priority for the 111th Congress.

That’s why we’ve joined with leaders across the nation in opposition of the Tiahrt Amendments as they have been previously attached to federal spending bills. We, along with a bipartisan coalition of 340 mayors and 200 police chiefs, urge President Barack Obama and our congressional leaders to take a common sense stand against illegal gun trafficking and reform these public'safety restrictions.

The Tiahrt Amendments are provisions that make it harder for law-enforcement officers to pursue criminals who buy and sell illegal guns. For years, they have been attached to federal budgets and have blocked efforts to stop the flow of illegal guns to criminals. As leaders throughout Florida continue to battle a devastating violent crime rate, we cannot afford the setbacks caused by Tiahrt.

These restrictive amendments tie the hands of law enforcement in three ways.

• First, the Tiahrt restrictions prevent cities and states from accessing federal crime gun trace data that shows which gun buyers and gun dealers are the sources of guns recovered over and over again in crimes. We know from data before these restrictions were put in place that just 1 percent of gun dealers are responsible for 57 percent of the guns recovered in crimes.

• Second, the Tiahrt Amendments prevent the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) from requiring dealers to provide an annual inventory. In 2007, ATF discovered 30,000 guns missing from gun-dealer inventories based on inspections of just 10 percent of the nation’s gun dealers.

• Finally, the Tiahrt Amendments require ATF to destroy FBI background-check records within 24 hours. During the Clinton administration, such records were preserved for 180 days and could help identify so-called ‘’straw purchasers’’ who illegally buy guns on behalf of criminals.

Fixing the Tiahrt Amendments would in no way impact the lawful purchase of firearms in the state of Florida. While most gun dealers run honest businesses, the Tiahrt Amendments make it harder to catch the few law-breaking gun dealers who falsify their records and the straw purchasers who are fueling the illegal gun market.

These harmful measures have nothing to with the Second Amendment or the rights of responsible gun owners. Instead, they are making it easier for the violent few to make our neighborhoods less safe for everyone. The circumstances created by the Tiahrt Amendments are not acceptable, and we will not stand idly by while more illegal guns flood our streets and poison our cities.

This is why we have joined the call for the reform of the Tiahrt Amendments in the fiscal year 2010 budget. These reforms are consistent with measures President Obama supported as a Senator in 2007. We urge Florida’s members on the key U.S. House Appropriations Committee -- Reps. Allen Boyd, Ander Crenshaw, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Bill Young -- to vote against the Tiahrt Amendments as written. It is one common sense step that we can take together in the fight to protect the future of this great state.

This column was written by the following mayors: Manny Diaz of Miami, John Peyton of Jacksonville, Kevin Burns of North Miami; Lois Frankel of West Palm Beach, John Marks of Tallahassee, Frank Ortis of Pembroke Pines, Buddy Dyer of Orlando, Scott Brooks of Coral Springs.