You've probably seen this one recently.
As a cop leaves a donut shop and drives into the night, his voice-over talks about how his job has changed. "Used to be about catching crooks. But now, police analyze crime data, spot patterns, and figure out where to send patrols. " Jump cut to an unsavory character in a beaten, rusting muscle car, also driving through the night. And a picture of some clerk, loading cash into a deposit bag at another convenience store. Back to the cop: "Now, the city's cut crime by up to 30%...", as the cop and what we know now must be a crook, cross paths at an overpass. The clerk again, zipping up the cash. The crook, parking behind the store, and marching towards the front door as he pulls on gloves to prevent finger prints. A car backs away from the front door, revealing the cop, leaning against his car in the next space, with a cup of coffee in hand, greeting the would-be crook. Who sees it's not his night, turns, and walks away.
Fun commercial, brilliantly simple explanation of a simple but straightforward idea. One that the NRA got Congress, through the Todd Tiahrt Amendments, to forbid.
See, if we change that line to "The ATF can analyze crime data, spot patterns, and figure out where to send agents to prevent sales to criminals", then you have what the Tiahrt Amendments were passed to prevent. Yes, I said "prevent". Written by the NRA.
I wrote about these awhile back, but now everyone's talking about them, on MSNBC, on KTLK 1150AM in LA, even on a couple of news shows on NPR. Between these Amendments to the federal statutes on guns, and other existing laws, the situation is this:
No matter how many guns you buy at one time, the information (type and quantity) is not included in the background check.
No matter how often you buy guns, the federal government is not allowed to keep the results of the background check for more than 24 hours, and they're forbidden from comparing them, even in those twenty four hours, with any other background check results.
This includes both ends of the transaction. So if you go into Guns-R-Us and pick up a hundred AR-15s and a couple thousand rounds of ammo, you can do it again tomorrow, and the next day, until your army is armed, or until Guns-R-Us runs out of inventory.
And Guns-R-Us, while supposed to keep records of those sales on paper, and records of their inventory, can only have either of those records inspected more than once a year. With significant advance notice. And without penalty if they can't find the paperwork, or lost some of those AR-15s, or Glock pistols, or whatever fell off the dock in back.
So the one-percent of gun dealers responsible for over 50% of the sales of guns used in crimes can no longer be identified or prosecuted. (By the way, those stats are from the last time they analyzed data they were allowed to collect. It was those results that caused the NRA to write the Amendments and Todd Tiahrt to get them passed.)
The only way left to prosecute the few dealers who are spoiling it for the rest of the 'law abiding gun owners' and their dealers, is to catch them in the act. In a sting the ATF named after a famous movie. What was that? "The Quick And The Dead"? No. What was it?....
Anyway, that's how the clowns at the NRA turned the ATF into those three monkeys that see no, hear no, and speak no evil about gun dealers. And made monkeys out of the rest of America.
The IBM commercial ends saying "Let's build a smarter planet". Let's. And let's start with smarter gun sales tracking, by repealing the Todd Tiahrt Amendments. And with a smarter approach to the NRA.
A one-finger salute.
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