[W]ASHINGTON — Democratic senators are pressing to modernize the tools federal law enforcement officers can use to trace firearms.
Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., introduced a bill that would require the federal government to set up a searchable electronic database that includes information tracing the production, shipment and sale of firearms.
Information about firearms is currently recorded and maintained by authorities, but current law prohibits that information from being accessed through a digital database.
In order to trace a firearm now, law enforcement must look through records manually, sorting through physical files that include microfilm and handwritten notes.
According to Leahy, there are currently 800 million paper records held at the West Virginia facility.
“There are few signs more revealing of Congress’ inability to responsibly legislate gun policy than its insistence that law enforcement not be allowed to effectively search through records already in its possession,” Leahy said.
Gun rights groups have raised issues with a searchable database for tracing guns, concerned about creating a registry of gun owners.
The National Rifle Association did not respond to a request for comment on the bill Friday.
The proposal has the support of students from a Parkland, Florida, high school where a gunman killed 17 adults and teenagers in February.
Charlie Mirsky, a student at the high school, wrote in a letter that the impact of digitizing the records would be “substantial,” according to a release from Leahy’s office.
“Law enforcement officers should no longer be forced to wade through cardboard boxes in an often-vain attempt to locate gun records,” Mirsky wrote.
