By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Here’s a bill that make sense.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida has introduced  legislation to establish a computerized, searchable database of gun records under a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate on Monday.

The Crime Gun Tracing Modernization Act would strike a current federal prohibition on the creation of a searchable database of gun records, reports Homeland Preparedness News reports.  The ATF would be required to establish a database that includes records of the sale, importation, production, and shipment of firearms within three years under the bill.

“The fact that there is a law on the books that forces agents to comb through millions of files by hand is absolutely ridiculous,” Nelson said.

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

The White House and Secret Service are scratching their head over this one.

They wonder how a National Security Council contractor was able to keep working in the highly secure presidential compound for more than a month after he allegedly shot a man at his Maryland home, reports Dion Nissenbaum and Del Quentin Wilber of the Wall Street Journal. 

Martese Edwards, 30,  was arrested by uniformed Secret Service agents outside the White House on Tuesday when he showed up for work, the Journal reports. He was arraigned in Washington on Wednesday, and was expected to be quickly extradited to neighboring Maryland to face attempted first-degree murder charges.

Edwards is charged with shooting his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend on May 3 when the two of them showed up at Edwards’s residence to get her belongings from his home in Suitland, Md., the Journal reports.

Rachel Brand (Doj photo)

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

The number three position at the Justice Department remains vacant, and for good reason, writes New York Magazine:

The Trump administration can’t seem to fill it, probably because the president has made it clear there’s a good risk of becoming the next target of his ire.

As President Trump continues to denigrate Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Twitter, and his allies in Congress lay the groundwork for him to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the number-three position at Justice Department has been vacant since Rachel Brand stepped down in February. The official reason given for her departure was that she could not pass up the top legal position at Walmart, but NBC News reported that she told friends she felt “overwhelmed and unsupported” in the job, and feared she would be asked to oversee the Russia investigation.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration has put filling the associate attorney general position on the back burner after several candidates expressed similar concerns. Since Sessions has recused himself, if Rosenstein were to do the same oversight of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe would fall to the associate AG. In a Saturday Night Massacre situation, the number-three official could easily wind up as acting attorney general.

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

The FBI agent who accidentally fired his gun over the weekend while dancing at a club in Denver has been the subject of plenty ridicule.

So, it was only a matter of time before the late night comics jumped in. On Wednesday night, Stephen Colbert played a mock training video in response to the incident in which a patron at the bar was shot and wounded in the leg.