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Editorial - A Stinging Report EVER SINCE Americans began stocking up on plastic dropcloths and duct tape, terms such as "americium-241" and "cesium-137" have been deservedly ominous. These are two dangerously radioactive substances, useful in certain industrial devices and potentially harmful if dispersed by the explosion of a "dirty bomb." Yet these are the very materials that investigators at the Government Accountability Office were able to order with ease -- and in alarming quantities -- in a recent sting. This year, an enterprising team at the GAO set up two phony companies, which the auditors used to apply for licenses from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and from state regulators in Maryland, to buy special moisture density gauges containing the radioactive substances. Even though each company's assets consisted of little more than a post-office box and cash to buy the equipment, the federal authorities quickly granted a license to one of the fake companies -- without any effort to visit the company's supposed facilities or to conduct a face-to-face interview with those who filled out the application. The investigators also easily tampered with the federal permit to allow for unlimited purchases of the material. They used the permit to order dozens of moisture gauges. Maryland regulators, on the other hand, asked to visit the worksite of the fake company that had sent them an application, whereupon the auditors withdrew their license application. Why make it easy to manipulate the system, especially when federal regulators can make a few relatively inexpensive changes to tighten safeguards? The NRC has revamped its guidelines in response to this embarrassment. NRC officials can, however, still learn something from their counterparts in Maryland, where, according to a spokeswoman for the state Department of the Environment, the authorities conduct on-site visits, not just interviews, before granting licenses....
Gun Shops Under Closer Scrutiny When criminals need guns, they have plenty of options in a country with nearly 100,000 licensed gun stores. But drug dealers and other crooks don't shop just anywhere. They have their favorites. In Compton, Calif., gangsters preferred Boulevard Sales & Service, a shop police said was so felon-friendly, some salesmen offered tips on how to buy a gun despite a criminal record. In Philadelphia, shady gun buyers sent girlfriends to a suburban pawn shop, Lou's Loan, where the staff wouldn't raise a fuss if a young woman came by a few times a month to purchase cheap handguns. And on the outskirts of New Orleans, killers-to-be armed themselves at Elliot's Gun Shop. Over the past five years, the store was the source of 2,300 weapons later linked to crime, including an astonishing 125 homicides, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In fact, government figures show that an extremely small number of gun shops account for a spectacularly large number of weapons used in crimes. Stores like these have long occupied protected territory. The products they sell are legal. Congress has sheltered them from lawsuits and limited the power of regulators. It can take years for the ATF to revoke a dealer's license. But there are signs that scrutiny is on the rise. Over the past three years, ATF agents have cracked down on some of the stores most notorious for selling large numbers of weapons used in street crime. In 2005 and 2006, some 220 firearms dealers had their licenses revoked - 20 more than in the previous eight years combined....
Lawmakers block access to gun sales data Pro-gun rights Democrats teamed with House Republicans on Thursday to block local governments and law enforcement agencies from gaining routine access to gun-purchasing data. The House Appropriations Committee defeated two attempts by gun control advocates to strip four-year-old restrictions on the use of information from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tracing gun sales. The votes were a victory for the National Rifle Association and came despite the Democratic takeover of Congress in January. The committee's emotional debate often focused on broader gun rights issues rather than the matter at hand, involving when the bureau can share such information. Gun control advocates say the gun sales data is essential to uncovering dealers who sell guns that disproportionately end up in the hands of criminals. Gun rights advocates, led by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., said mayors such as New York's Michael Bloomberg want the data to sue out-of-state gun dealers. Tiahrt, the key sponsor of the restrictions on sharing gun trace data, also said easing the restrictions could lead to the disclosure of police officers' identities and other details to criminals....