Chris Eger
Members of Congress are asking the General Accountability Office to review the Fast and Furious-related Suspect Gun Database while an investigative report claims 91 percent of those snared in Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives stings are minorities.
Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) are asking the Comptroller General of the United States to revisit the GAO investigation last conducted in 1996 that addressed whether ATF has illegally kept gun owner databases.
“Under the Gun Control Act, ATF does have responsibility for various law enforcement functions, such as the tracing of firearms,” wrote Grassley and Issa in their July 18 letter to the head of the GAO. “However, given the ambiguity in ATF’s use of the Suspect Gun Database for tracing firearms, it and any other new database should be examined for compliance with ATF’s data restrictions.”
The lawmakers contended that ATF agents, under the Operation Fast and Furious investigation, added extensive amounts of firearms to what is termed the Suspect Gun Database maintained by the agency.