|
Q. What role do gun dealers play in gun trafficking?
A. Corrupt and negligent gun dealers divert substantial numbers of guns from the legal market to the illegal market. According to studies of gun trafficking, over an 18-month period:
- 40,365 guns were trafficked directly by corrupt or negligent gun dealers (ATF, June 2000, p. 13)
- 25,741 guns were trafficked by straw purchasers buying guns at corrupt or negligent gun dealers (ATF, June 2000, p. 13)
- 6,084 guns were stolen from gun dealers (ATF, June 2000, p. 13).
These numbers undercount gun trafficking from gun dealers. ATF has limited resources to conduct trafficking investigations. Consequently, it uncovers a fraction of the gun trafficking operations happening at any given time.
Gun dealers also have thousands of guns “go missing” from their inventories. An analysis by the Brady Center in 2008 found that gun dealers “lost” at least 82 firearms every day, totaling more than 30,000 guns that year (Brady Center, 2008).
In 1998, the former chief of ATF’s Crime Gun Analysis Branch, Joseph J. Vince, Jr., stated, “The most important ‘single source of firearms for the illegal market is still illegal traffickers who are acquiring firearms from retail outlets’” (Vince, 1998).
For information on gun trafficking facilitated by private sales exempt from Brady background checks, click here.
Q. How many licensed gun dealers are involved in gun trafficking?
A. Evidence from crime gun tracing data points to just one percent of licensed gun dealers (1,020 dealers) accounting for almost 60 percent of guns recovered by police in connection with crime and traced back through the chain of commerce (ATF, Commerce in Firearms, p. 23).
Likewise, a small percentage of dealers accounts for most thefts. For example, in 1996, only 1.3 percent of dealers experienced a theft and only 0.27 percent of dealers had multiple thefts. (Rostron, p.11).
ATF identified the concentration of crime gun sales among a small percentage of gun dealers through its Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative. YCGII, as it was called, enlisted more than 50 of the largest cities in America to trace every crime gun recovered by police to learn where it came from. At the same time, it encouraged law enforcement throughout the United States to trace all of the guns recovered in connection with criminal investigations.
Through comprehensive crime gun tracing, about 1.7 million crime guns were traced from 1996-2003. The results of this comprehensive crime gun tracing were striking. Report after report issued by ATF showed that only a few corrupt gun dealers were supplying most of the crime guns recovered by law enforcement.
As industry whistleblower Rob Ricker has stated, the current distribution system “encourages and rewards illegal activity by a few corrupt dealers and distributors,” while putting lawful and conscientious dealers at an economic disadvantage (Rostron, p. 15).
Based on patterns uncovered by tracing guns recovered in crime, it is clear that most licensed gun dealers are honest businesspeople. Each year, eighty-five percent of gun dealers do not have any crime guns traced to them.
Unfortunately, thanks to Congress doing the gun lobby’s bidding, crime gun tracing information is no longer available. Starting in 2003, Congress has attached a series of riders to Justice Department appropriations bills prohibiting ATF from disclosing crime gun trace data to the public. ATF released limited data in 2006, 2007, and 2008, but the data does not reveal how many dealers funnel the most guns into the illegal market.
Q. Why doesn’t ATF just put these corrupt and negligent gun dealers out of business?
A. The federal agency responsible for overseeing the gun industry is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is now part of the U.S. Department of Justice. Although ATF has long recognized that corrupt dealers are a major source of trafficked guns, the gun lobby has succeeded in persuading Congress to place severe limits on the Bureau’s authority to regulate licensed dealers and force corrupt dealers out of business.
Moreover, Congress has chronically under funded ATF. ATF has the responsibility for inspecting federally licensed firearm dealers and shutting down corrupt dealers who supply criminals with guns. But ATF has too few inspectors to handle this task. In fact, the Justice Department’s Inspector General estimated that, at its current rate of inspections, it would take ATF more than 22 years to inspect all licensed dealers.
Valley Gun of Baltimore, Maryland, is a poster child for the tragic consequences of ATF’s weak authority. Valley Gun’s owner is National Rifle Association Board Member Sanford M. Abrams (National Rifle Association (NRA), 2005). He took over operations of Valley Gun in 1996 and was charged with violating federal gun laws less than a year later (RSM, 2006, p. 2). By 2003, the Bureau of Alcohol,Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) had documented “over nine hundred” violations of federal law by Valley Gun (U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), p. 3). Yet, ATF was not able to close the shop down until February 2006 (Vice, p. 1).
During Valley Gun’s tenure, law enforcement traced hundreds of crime guns to the shop, with 483 firearms traced to crime from 1996 to 2000 alone (AGSF, p. 12). Valley Gun was in the top 0.05% of dealers in total crime guns traced to their stores, ranking 37 out of nearly 80,000 gun dealers nationwide (AGSF, p. 14).
ATF found that more than one-quarter of Valley Gun’s entire firearms inventory was unaccounted for, and therefore, untraceable (RSM, 2006, p. 4). ATF also caught Valley Gun selling a gun to a buyer who stated that he was prohibited from buying a gun under federal law and to another buyer without conducting a proper Brady background check (DOJ, p. 29 and RSM, p. 4).
Read Brady Center reports on the issue: Death Valley and NRA: A Criminal's Best Friend.
Q. What tools does federal law enforcement need to crack down on corrupt gun dealers?
A. Congress should remove constraints on ATF’s ability to root out illegal gun trafficking. ATF needs stronger and more flexible authority, as detailed in a memo to the Obama Administration.
In summary, Congress should:
- Give ATF stronger and more flexible authority to enforce the law against corrupt dealers, including: 1) revoking lawbreaking dealers’ licenses, 2) inspecting dealers more frequently than once a year, 3) temporarily suspending dealer licenses, 4) levying civil penalties, and 5) bringing felony charges against dealers for record-keeping violations that often occur when dealers engage in off-the-books gun sales.
- Create a felony penalty for knowingly facilitating a straw purchase,
- Require licensed dealers to adopt minimum security safeguards to prevent gun thefts,
- Require dealers to conduct inventory audits to address the problem of guns “disappearing” from gun shops with no record of sale,
- Require licensed gun manufacturers and dealers to perform background checks on their employees,
- Prevent dealers from liquidating their inventory without background checks after their licenses have been revoked; and,
- Restrict large-volume handgun sales.
Q. What can states do to strengthen state law enforcement’s ability to crack down on corrupt dealers?
A. States can adopt their own gun dealer regulations. This will provide tools to state law enforcement and will also build support for a national law. To see components that are important to include in state gun dealer licensing laws, see the Brady Campaign State Scorecard.
Q. What is the evidence that greater regulation of gun dealers works?
A. Greater regulation of gun dealers includes licensing laws and limits on bulk sales of handguns. Both have been found to be effective in reducing gun trafficking.
A study of firearm seller regulations found that strong, enforced gun dealer licensing laws reduce gun trafficking within a state by 64 percent (Webster, 2009, p. 8). The researchers also found that background checks on private sales reduce gun trafficking within a state by 48 percent.
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association of Virginia’s law restricting bulk sales of handguns showed that prior to the law, 38% of all guns originating in the Southeast and traced in the Northeast came from Virginia gun shops. After the law took effect, that percentage dropped to 16% (Weil, p. 1760).
Maryland has also adopted restrictions on bulk sales of handguns. In Maryland, handgun sales dropped more than 20% during the first year of that state's gun sale limitation law (Koper, p. 19). Furthermore, the risk of multiple-sale guns being recovered in crime was lower after the passage of Maryland’s law (Koper, p. 83).
Gun dealers stop diverting guns to the illegal market when public and law enforcement pressure is exerted. In Milwaukee, a single gun dealer sold more than half of the guns recovered from criminals in that city. When the store voluntarily decided to stop selling the small, inexpensive handguns popular with criminals, there was a corresponding 96 percent decrease in recently sold, small, inexpensive handguns used in crime in Milwaukee (Webster, 2006, p. 778).
Police stings and lawsuits against Chicago gun dealers suspected of facilitating illegal gun sales resulted in a 46 percent reduction in the flow of new guns to criminals in Chicago (Webster, 2006, p. 225). Gun dealer licensing provides law enforcement with the tools they need to apply enforcement pressure to corrupt dealers.
Q. Is there public support for strong regulation of gun dealers?
A. Yes. A majority of Americans strongly favor manufacturers requiring dealers to adopt a code of conduct for sales and distribution of its handguns (National Shooting Sports Foundation, p. 48).
Eighty-six percent of Americans, including 83 percent of gun owners, support requiring gun retailers to inspect their own inventories at least once a year to make sure no guns have been stolen or gone missing (Greenberg, p. 3).
Eighty percent of Americans, including 80 percent of gun owners, support requiring gun dealers whose licenses have been revoked from selling their guns without a background check (Greenberg, p. 3).
Solution: We need to implement a common sense comprehensive policy to help law enforcement prevent gun trafficking. We can do this by giving law enforcement new legal authority to crack down on corrupt gun dealers. We also need to adopt other common sense policies like limiting the number of handguns that can be bought at one time, requiring Brady criminal background checks on all gun sales, not just those of licensed dealers, and banning military-style assault weapons with high capacity magazines.
Q. What can I do?
A. Contact your Representative and Senators to urge them to strengthen the authority of the Bureay of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) to crack down effectibely on the corrupt gun dealers that supply guns to criminals.
Sources
Americans for Gun Safety Foundation, Selling Crime: High Crime Gun Stores Fuel Criminals (January 2004)
Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, U.S. Gun Shops "Lost" More Than 30,000 Firearms Last Year, June 17, 2008, accessed 8/7/2009 at http://www.bradycampaign.org/media/release.php?release=988.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Following the Gun: Enforcing Federal Laws Against Firearms Traffickers (June 2000) The investigations covered a total of 84,128 guns. Guns could be counted in more than one trafficking category. The total count excluded 60 investigations with an unknown number of trafficked firearms.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Gun Dealer Licensing and Illegal Gun Trafficking. January 1997
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research & The Tarrance Group, Americans Support Common Sense Measures to Cut Down on Illegal Guns, Washington, DC, April 10, 2008.
Koper, Christopher S., Crime Gun Risk Factors: Buyer, Seller, Firearm, and Transaction Characteristics Associated with Gun trafficking and Criminal Gun Use: Report to the National Institute of Justice, Philadelphia, PA: Jerry Lee School of Criminology (2007): 1-96.
National Rifle Association, NRA Announces New Officers (Apr. 19, 2005), http://www.nraila.org/News/Read/Releases.aspx?ID=5645 (last visited June 20, 2006); National Rifle Association: Report of the 2002 Committee on Elections, http://nrawinningteam.com/bios02/annual/elecrep.html (last visited June 20, 2006); National Rifle Association: Report of the 1999 Committee on Elections, http://nrawinningteam.com/meeting99/99elec.html (last visited June 20,2006).
National Shooting Sports Foundation. Documents produced by Sturm, Ruger, and Co. in the California Firearm Case (SR 20910-69), on file with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence
Rostron, Allen, Smoking Guns: Exposing the Gun Industry's Complicity in the Illegal Market, Washington, DC: Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 2003
RSM, Inc. (d/b/a Valley Gun) v. Herbert, No. 1:05-cv-00847, slip op. at 2-3 (D. Md. Feb. 23, 2006); Valley Gun website, http://www.valleygun.net/Baltimore_Gun_Shop_About.html (last visited June 6, 2006).
U.S. Department of Justice, Respondent’s Memorandum Of Law In Support Of Motion For Summary Judgment, filed in RSM, Inc. (d/b/a Valley Gun) v. Herbert, No. 1:05-cv-00847
Vice, Daniel R., Death Valley: Profile of a Rogue Gun Dealer: Valley Gun, Baltimore, MD, Washington, DC: Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, June 2006
Vince, Joseph J. Jr., City of New York v. Beretta, No. CV-3641 (E.D.N.Y. 2005) quoting Joseph J. Vince, Jr., “Memo from the Chief re: Firearms Outside the Retail Chain,” CGAB [Crime Gun Analysis Branch] Shots 2 (8) (1998):2
Webster, Daniel W, Jon Vernick, and Maria T. Bulzacchelli, "Effects of State-Level Firearm Seller Accountability Policies on Firearm Trafficking," Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine (2009)
Webster, Daniel W., ”Effects of a Gun Dealer’s Change in Sales Practices on the Supply of Guns to Criminals,” Journal of Urban Health 83(5):778-787
Webster, Daniel W., “Effects of Undercover Police Stings of Gun Dealers on the Supply of New Guns to Criminals,” Injury Prevention 12 (2006):225-230
Weil, Doug and Rebecca Knox, “Effects of Limiting Handgun Purchases on Interstate Transfer of Firearms,” Journal of the American Medical Association 275 (1996);1759-1761
|
Overview