On January 21, a U.S. District Court issued a summary judgement against the city of Baltimore in its quest for firearms trace data that could have impacted privacy matters for “innocent citizens.”
Ruling in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in the case of Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. ATF, Judge Randolph D. Moss’s 35-page opinion granted the ATF’s request for summary judgment, while denying the city’s cross-motion for summary judgment.
On September 12, 2023, Baltimore submitted a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to the ATF for data on firearms recovered in Baltimore in relation to its “gun violence prevention efforts.” The ATF denied the request and the city also lost a subsequent administrative appeal. Then, in December of 2023, the city filed a lawsuit backed by anti-gun group Everytown and its legal arm, Everytown Law.
The ATF, which is responsible for firearms tracing – the systematic tracking of a recovered firearm from its manufacturer or importer through its subsequent chain of custody in order to identify an unlicensed purchaser – denied Baltimore’s request, citing Exemption 3 and the 2012 “Tiahrt Rider.”
In general, FOIA requires federal agencies to make records promptly available, unless subject to one of nine exemptions. Exemption 3 protects records “specifically exempted from disclosure by statute.”
Simply put, the 2012 congressional appropriations Tiahrt Rider stipulates that “no funds appropriated under this or any other Act may be used to disclose part or all of the contents of the Firearms Trace System database maintained by the National Trace Center of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives…”
The first such rider was enacted in 2003 and was proposed out of a concern that records could jeopardize criminal investigations, officer safety, and privacy of innocent individuals.
In his decision, Judge Moss concluded “Accordingly, the entirety of Baltimore’s FOIA request is barred by the Rider, and the Bureau properly withheld the responsive records.”
In 2020, Everytown lost a similar lawsuit challenging a FOIA request denial.
On the same day the district court issued this decision, it also denied Everytown’s and the City of Baltimore’s motion to speak at oral arguments in a gag order case being litigated between Gun Owners of America, Inc., Gun Owners Foundation, and the ATF.
