Little Rock - Attorney General John Ashcroft and congressional Republicans have slipped an amendment into the pending Omnibus Appropriations Bill that would require the Justice Department to destroy all gun purchasers' background check information within 24 hours of the sale.

General Wesley Clark said in a statement:

"I'm a gun owner, and I believe in gun rights. But I am outraged that Republicans in Congress and John Ashcroft have put the interests of the NRA over the interests of law enforcement and our communities by proposing to destroy background check records after just 24 hours.

"Federal, state and local law enforcement officials agree that we need to keep gun sale background check records for at least 90 days. A GAO report found that hundreds of guns each year are mistakenly sold to people who aren't legally allowed to purchase them. For example, up to 500 guns are wrongly sold each year to domestic abusers, and the FBI has used these records to track them down.

"If John Ashcroft and the gun lobby get their way, police won't be able to identify criminals and potential terrorists who get their hands on guns after going through a background check. No reasonable gun owner thinks this is a good idea.

"As President, I will make sure that law enforcement has the tools they need to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. If it's signed into law this year, one of my first actions will be to seek to overturn this wrong-headed move to take away a crucial law enforcement tool."