Listen to this articleBaltimore’s mayor is trying a new strategy to fight gun violence: suing the federal agency that traces the sources of “crime guns” but won’t share the data with local policymakers.
Mayor Brandon Scott on Tuesday announced a new lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which in September denied a public records request from the city of Baltimore for gun crime data.
The agency claimed it is prohibited from sharing the data under the “Tiahrt rider,” a provision in federal appropriations law that blocks the release of firearms trace data to anyone other than law enforcement agencies.
That means the Baltimore Police Department can see the data but cannot share it with Scott or other local officials who could use the information to identify problem gun stores, for example.
“Right now, we’re not able to know if there’s one gun store responsible for a disproportionate number of guns flowing into our city, or if there’s one area where trafficking guns is more common than others, but we should know and we should be able to use that information to protect our residents,” Scott said at a news conference.
The information would help the city more carefully target its gun violence prevention strategies, he said.
The lawsuit challenges the ATF’s interpretation of the Tiahrt rider and argues that the agency is violating the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to release the data. The rider, which was originally passed in 2003 and was re-enacted in 2012, does not specifically mention FOIA and does not meet the requirements for a FOIA exemption, the suit claims.
The Tiahrt rider, which is supported by the National Rifle Association, has been a key sticking point for gun safety groups and researchers that wish to use the ATF’s data to study gun violence. Everytown Law, the legal arm of the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, brought the lawsuit on behalf of the city along with Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, a New York-based law firm.
“Keeping the data secret prevents Baltimore and other cities from educating the public about the sources of illegal guns in their communities,” Acting City Solicitor Ebony Thompson said. “It benefits no one but the gun industry.”
Local law enforcement agencies recover guns used in crimes and can submit them to the ATF for tracing, which follows the firearm’s path from manufacturer to distributor to retailer.
The city in September filed a FOIA request for a variety of data the ATF compiles based on the trace information. The request sought the licensed gun dealers that make up the top 10 sources of crime guns in Baltimore between 2018 and 2022; the “time-to-crime,” or how long it took for a legally purchased gun to be used in a crime; and the source state and other information about guns used in homicides, other violent crimes and suicides.
The city also asked for the underlying data that was used to compile charts listing the top source cities of firearms recovered in Baltimore and the top recovery cities of firearms sourced from Baltimore, according to the lawsuit.
Scott said Tuesday that if city policymakers had access to the data, they could use it to take action — such as filing lawsuits — against gun retailers or traffickers that are major sources of crime guns.
“I’ve said repeatedly that we want to hold everyone responsible for gun violence in our city accountable, from those who pull the trigger, to those who supply the weapons and traffic them, who sell them to people who shouldn’t have them,” Scott said.
The ATF declined to comment Tuesday.
The lawsuit is docketed at 1:23-cv-03762 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.