If Craig's legislation passes, it will be the latest in a long line of actions since Bush took office making powerful guns easier to get and harder to trace, even as politicians on both sides of the aisle claim to be getting tough on terrorism. In a speech to the United Nations soon after 9/11, Bush had called on the world to crack down on terrorists' financing, improve intelligence, coordinate law enforcement and keep guns out of terrorists' hands. "In this war on terror, each of us must answer for what we have done or what we have left undone," Bush told the U.N. General Assembly on Nov. 10, 2001. "We have a responsibility to deny weapons to terrorists and to actively prevent private citizens from providing them."

Yet, under a law Bush signed in January 2004, the government now destroys in 24 hours all records from background checks of gun purchasers. Critics had said keeping the records would help the government track fraud and abuse. In his hypothetical scenario at the Mall of America, Clarke writes: "This meant that if a gun buyer subsequently turned up on the new Integrated Watch List, or was discovered by law-enforcement officials to be a felon or a suspected terrorist, when government authorities tried to investigate the sale, the record of the purchase would already be on the way to the shredder." Right after 9/11, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft refused to give the FBI access to records that might have helped determine if any of the 1,200 people detained immediately after the attacks had sought to buy weapons.

In September 2004, Congress allowed the ban on assault weapons to expire. President Bush has said he supports the ban, and has faced harsh criticism for expending little political capital to extend it. Gun rights groups say the ban was mostly aesthetic. But perhaps most important, the ban also outlawed ammunition clips larger than 10 rounds. Now, clips are unregulated, giving potential terrorists more continuous firepower for their high-powered weapons.

While the government's "war on terror" continues, Congress also has not yet closed the "gun show loophole." Sales at gun shows are completely unregulated in most states, and most purchases require no background checks. There is concern that the shows are open-air bazaars for criminals, and possibly terrorists. Congress also passed what is known as the "Tiahrt Amendment," named after Kansas Republican Rep. Todd Tiahrt. It keeps secret from the public ATF data tracing weapons used in crimes.

Congress and the White House have also failed to close the loophole that allows people on federal watch lists to legally buy guns. Congress has previously come up with a raft of reasons to bar a gun purchase, such as the 1968 ban for felons or illegal immigrant status. But more than three years after 9/11, being a suspected terrorist doesn't disqualify one from buying a gun. FBI Director Robert Mueller told a House panel this month that perhaps that should be changed. "We ought to look at what can be done to perhaps modify the law to limit that person's access to a weapon," Mueller said. Justice Department officials said no proposal to do that is forthcoming. Kevin Madden, a department spokesman, said preventing terrorists from buying guns might alert them that they were under surveillance. "The terrorist watch list is an intelligence watch list that is constantly evolving," Madden told me.

The ATF said it doesn't hunt terrorists, per se, but that it does go after gun criminals and hopes terrorists get caught in the net. "Our criminal efforts are also our terrorism efforts," said ATF spokesman Drew Wade. "We have to enforce the laws of the land. So hopefully enforcing the laws of the land will help with terrorism as well." The ATF said firearms investigations have increased 93 percent over the past five years, and the number of defendants referred for prosecution on firearms violations has increased 135 percent over the same period.

Ricker, the former gun show lobbyist, worries about indications that the new bill giving immunity to the gun industry will pass. He said he bets that few lawmakers even know about the provision that would hog-tie the ATF. "I think it is incredible that the Republicans are kowtowing to a strong political ally,  the NRA. That is now spilling over to things like this immunity bill. They just say, 'This is [about] guns; I'm voting for it.' They obviously have not even read the bill."

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