Advocates say a database would make it easier to trace weapons, reducing the need for complex surveillance operations like Fast and Furious.
Mr. Gore supported efforts in the late 1970's to stop the Bureau of Alcohol , Tobaccoand Firearms from creating a system of serial numbers to be used to trace weapons.
The federal government is allowed to only trace weapons used in crimes and has no idea of the full scope of the border trade, which accounts for 9 out of 10 recovered weapons.
The agenda at the latest meetings, held Monday through Friday, was limited to issues for which broader support exists, including managing weapons and munitions stockpiles, restricting illegal brokering, and improving efforts to mark and trace weapons.
In El Paso in August, Michael Sullivan, director of the Bureau of Alcohol , Tobacco and Firearms said the US and Mexican governments were co-operating in an effort to trace weapons seized in Mexico, finding - to nobody's surprise - that between 90 and 95percentnt originate in the US 'mostly from the four southwestern states.
We show there is the impact of the gun lobby at every turn, whether it comes to the computerization of records and the ability of the Bureau of Alcohol , Tobacco Firearms and Explosives to trace weapons or whether it comes to studying gun violence as a public health issue.
(The feds are reportedly working on tracing the weapons now).
Restrictions enacted at the gun lobby's behest make it exceedingly hard to identify dealers who falsify sales records, for example, and bar the bureau from putting gun-sale records into a central database for speedy tracing of weapons used in crimes.
He says that he has begun the process of tracing the weapons involved, and where it was obtained.
New laws make it much harder to trace illegal weapons and require the destruction after 24 hours of information gathered during checks of would-be gun-buyers.
