Oh, Lawyers Schmoyers!

Thanks, N.R.A.! We certainly don't want to keep track of people -- even terrorism suspects -- who are buying guns. The whole "War on Terror" is all fine and good, but let's not get carried away. We should continue to destroy those gun applications in 24 hours, because, uh, well, I'm sure it makes sense, right? I must not know enough about the issue. Yeah, that's it. Guns aren't the problem, folks. Or bullets. It's, uh, well, it's probably something to do with those damn Hollywood liberals!

Terror Suspects Buying Firearms, U.S. Report Finds

"The legal debate over how gun records are used became particularly contentious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, when it was disclosed that the Justice Department and John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, had blocked the F.B.I. from using the gun-buying records to match against some 1,200 suspects who were detained as part of the Sept. 11 investigation. Mr. Ashcroft maintained that using the records in a criminal investigation would violate the federal law that created the system for instant background gun checks, but Justice Department lawyers who reviewed the issue said they saw no such prohibition."