|
ATF Wants Funding For Data Analysts To Gather Gun Trace Information
[ZERO] The agency included the wish list in Volume III of a four-part report, "National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment: Firearms Trafficking Investigations."According to the report, the agency is hobbled by unwieldy databases, outdated processes, and a lack of full-time employees to track firearms from their first point of sale to the time they turn up at crime scenes. Second Amendment advocates counter that the agency has restrictions on it that prevent it from building a registry of firearms. They say the ATF should be more focused on crime than politics. "All the federal government needs to do is prosecute those who break these laws," Randy Kozuch, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) said in an email to The Epoch Times. An ATF spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. The report draws data from 9,708 ATF firearm trafficking investigations conducted between 2017 and 2021, according to a statement on the ATF webpage. It found nearly 230,000 trafficked guns in 7,779 cases between 2017 and 2021. On average, 16 firearms were found per investigation—almost 60 percent of the cases involved five or fewer guns, gun parts, or regulated accessories. Dealing firearms without a license was the most common trafficking-related crime reported. This has become something of a hot-button issue for Second Amendment advocates. Gun rights advocates who spoke with The Epoch Times dismissed the report as evidence that the ATF has been weaponized. They claim that President Joe Biden is pushing an anti-gun agenda by using the ATF to bludgeon legal gun owners and federally licensed dealers (FFLs). Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs for Gun Owners of America (GOA), said the ATF’s data belies the agency’s true intention. He pointed to the five or fewer firearms uncovered in the majority of the agency’s investigations. Posted by: Besoeker 2024-04-12 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=696507 |