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Posted 3/6/25

WHO’S UNDER THE GUN?

THE ATF, THAT’S WHOM

Going after gun controllers, for the usual reasons

     For Police Issues by Julius (Jay) Wachtel.  As bad as things may seem for the FBI (see its own “Under the Gun” post,) the highly-regarded law enforcement agency’s prospects have definitely not fallen to ATF’s level. While no Federal legislator proposes to do away with the “Feebs” altogether, thirty-three Representatives recently signed on to House Bill 221, the “Abolish the ATF Act.” Introduced by Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) on January 7th., its full text is presently comprised of a single, unambiguous sentence: “The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is hereby abolished.” Natch, in our ideologically-split land, it’s no surprise that Rep. Burlison and each of his co-conspirators (oops, we meant co-signers) are “Reds.”

     But if ATF can’t simply be booted out, Rep. Tracey Mann (R-KS) has proposed a measure that would in effect achieve the same purpose. Modeled after lawsuits filed by the Gun Owners of America (click here and here,) House Bill 624, the RIFLE Act (“Reining In Federal Licensing Enforcement”) is a re-play of a measure that Rep. Mann introduced during the last term (graphic on the left.) Zeroing in on that noxious, “zero-tolerance” regulatory approach over firearms dealers that was imposed by the recently-toppled “Blue” regime, his proposal narrowly defines “willful” (i.e., purposeful) misconduct, which can strip dealers of their licenses and even lead to prosecution. Multiple instances of flawed record-keeping would  normally be treated as a single event. What’s more, even when missteps seem intentional, licensees would usually have to be given an opportunity to mend their ways. And if those nasty Feds still insisted on taking their license, dealers would get elaborate hearings before administrative law judges – in effect, mini-trials – where the Government would have to prove two things: that a violation was committed “willfully,” and that letting the dealer stay in business “poses an immediate and grave threat to public safety.”

     So there!

Click here for the complete collection of gun control essays

     Twenty-eight House members affixed their John Hancocks as co-signers to Rep. Mann’s bill. Again, all are “Reds.” Many have also introduced their own gun-related measures during the present term. Here’s a look at a few:

1. Repeal the NFA Act (H.R.335): Rep. Burlison (of “Abolish ATF” fame) also presented a bill to repeal the National Firearms Act, a long-established Federal law that imposes fees and strict conditions on the manufacture, possession and transfer of machineguns and other restricted weapons. He’s particularly incensed that pistols with mere “stabilizing braces” are being treated as killer short-barreled rifles.

2. ATF Accountability Act of 2025 (H.R.607): Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) would institute a 90-day time limit for the Attorney General to rule on challenges to gun regulatory decisions. Equally timely decisions by administrative law judges are also part of the mix.

3. Define silencers as an ordinary gun accessory (S.364, H.R.850, S.345, H.R.631): Senators Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Mike Lee (R-UT) and Reps. Michael Cloud (R-TX) and August Pflueger (R-TX) believe that the hearing protection assertedly afforded by silencers warrants their removal from the special fees and registration requirements presently imposed by Federal law.

4. Prohibit States and localities from superseding Federal gun laws (H.R.373): Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) proposes to prohibit States and cities from outlawing the possession of firearms that are legal under Federal law. Say, New York State, which has supposedly trampled on the Second Amendment by outlawing high-capacity magazines and guns with “military-style” features.

5. Transparency Act (H.R.613): Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-ID) would impose a 90-day time limit on criminal background checks for gun sales and transfers. And, as well, on the adjudication of appeals filed by would-be buyers who get turned down. If the Government can’t do it within this time-frame, sales are to be considered approved.

6. Eliminate the national firearms registry (H.R.563 and S.119): Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) and Sen. James Risch (R-ID) introduced legislation that authorizes gun makers, distributors and dealers to throw away their sales records when they go out of business. At present they must turn them over to ATF, which uses the documents to create a registry that enables law enforcement agencies to identify the last known purchaser of guns they seize on the street. All sales records in ATF’s possession would also have to be destroyed.

7. Merchant category codes (H.R.1181 and H.R.1224): Reps. Riley Moore (R-WV) and Andrew Ogles (R-TN) propose to do away with codes used by credit card companies that identify merchants as gun or ammunition dealers.

8. State and local insurance requirements (H.R.943): Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) would prohibit States and localities from imposing firearms-related taxes or fees or requiring that gun owners carry liability insurance.

     “Blues” also want to tinker with gun laws. As one would expect, their preferences run in the opposite,  gun and gun dealer-unfriendly direction. Here are some of the measures they’ve introduced during the present session:

1. Prompt reporting of missing guns (H.R.1456): Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) would require that lost or stolen guns “be reported to law enforcement authorities within 48 hours.” He has eighteen co-sponsors.

2. Prohibit persons under 21 from buying highly lethal firearms (S.597): Sen. Alex Padilla’s (D-CA) proposal would prohibit anyone under 21 from buying an assault weapon or high-capacity magazine. He’s also got 18 co-sponsors.

3. Improve gun storage to prevent theft (H.R.1097 and S.468): Rep. Bradley Schneider (D-IL) and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) have introduced companion measures that require firearms licensees to provide highly secure storage, including alarms and cameras, to safeguard their inventories and records.

4. Authorize private lawsuits against makers or sellers of unserialized “ghost guns” and ghost gun parts (H.R.544): Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) introduced a bill that would allow persons injured by unserialized guns, and their families, to sue their sellers and makers in Federal court.

5. Study gun trafficking along I-95’s “Iron Pipeline” (H.R.543): Rep. Torres also introduced a bill that directs ATF to report on the nature and source of guns that are “trafficked” (i.e., illegally redistributed) along the East Coast’s main North-South corridor, and to suggest ways to combat the problem.

6. Handgun Permit to Purchase Act (H.R.532 and S.123): Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Sen Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) feel that Maryland’s handgun licensing law has proven effective in combatting gun crimes and suicides. They propose that the Federal government fund studies and implementations of such measures elsewhere.

7. Re-establish the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention (H.R.1307 and S.595): Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) was behind legislation that created this office under Pres. Biden. It supposedly helped individuals and communities get funding and resources to combat gun violence. But the office was promptly shuttered by the new regime. He and Sen. Christopher Murphy (D-CT) want to bring it back. Rep. Frost has 115 co-sponsors; Sen. Murphy has seven. All are “Blues.”

     What’s our take? None of the proposals we’ve examined, whether “Red” or “Blue,” focuses on an issue dear to our heart: licensee misconduct. Your writer spent the last few years of his career as an ATF special agent leading a gun trafficking group in Los Angeles. That’s where he discovered that misbehavior by firearms dealers is a major source of the killer guns that wind up on the street. His post-retirement journal article, “Sources of Crime Guns in Los Angeles, California,” examined (among many other things) twenty-eight gun diversion investigations conducted by L.A.-area ATF agents during 1992-1995. These addressed the diversion of 19,145 guns. Seventy-one percent (13,667) had gone through the hands of fifteen licensed dealers who falsified sales records or kept none at all. (For an instance with a particularly tragic outcome, check out “The Pistol That Killed Officer Heim.”)

     “Following the Gun,” a landmark 2000 ATF study, confirmed that misconduct by Federal firearms licensees (FFL’s) was indeed a major problem:

Although FFL traffickers were involved in the smallest proportion of ATF trafficking investigations, under 10 percent, FFL traffickers were associated with by far the highest mean number of illegally diverted firearms per investigation, over 350, and the largest total number of illegally diverted firearms, as compared to the other trafficking channels.

Alas, the agency’s vigor for pursuing misbehaving licensees has long been in question. In May 2021 The Trace and USA Today released a deeply-researched analysis of “nearly 2,000” gun dealer inspections during 2015-2017 that led to a penalty, from a warning letter to a (rare) license revocation. It concluded that even licensees who “repeatedly” broke the rules were usually treated with a light touch, thus allowing them to continue their (highly consequential) predations:

The reports showed some dealers outright flouting the rules, selling weapons to convicted felons and domestic abusers, lying to investigators and fudging records to mask their unlawful conduct. In many cases when the ATF caught dealers breaking the law, the agency issued warnings, sometimes repeatedly, and allowed the stores to operate for months or years. Others are still selling guns to this day.

     In June 2021 (only a month after that uncomplimentary assessment) the Biden administration announced a measure to cut down on gun crime. Its “Comprehensive Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gun Crime and Ensure Public Safety” promised to address gun violence “by taking immediate steps to keep guns out of the wrong hands.” (It’s been removed from the White House website, so we downloaded it from the Wayback Machine. Click here for the whole thing, and here for BJA’s summary, which so far remains online.)

     A month after President Biden issued his plan, ATF announced its now-notorious “zero-tolerance” policy for gun dealer misconduct. Here’s an extract:

Absent extraordinary circumstances, an inspection that results in a finding that an FFL has willfully committed any of the following violations shall [emphasis ours] result in a revocation recommendation: (a) The transfer of a firearm to a prohibited person; (b) Failing to conduct a required background check; (c) Falsification of records, such as a firearms transaction form; (d) Failing to respond to an ATF tracing request; (e) Refusing to permit ATF to conduct an inspection in violation of the law.

     Problems with gun dealers nonetheless persisted. ATF’s most recent inspections “fact sheet” indicates that inspectors visited the premises of 8,689 firearms licensees in FY 2023. That was about six and one-half percent of the 132,383 licensees who were then in business. Reports of violation were completed for 1,531. “Warning letters” were issued to 667, “warning conferences” were held for 166, and 170 licenses were revoked.

     Full stop. As one would expect, ATF’s aggressive posture drew major blowback from gun enthusiasts and the firearms industry. Here’s an outtake from the NRA’s recent parting shot at former ATF Director Steve Dettelbach (he resigned when President Trump came in for round #2):

Perhaps worst of all was the war on gun stores under Dettelbach’s “leadership.” In short, an executive order from Biden directed Dettelbach’s ATF to make life as difficult as possible for firearms dealers. This was done by implementing a “zero-tolerance policy,” which may have punished the “rogue,” “dishonest” gun dealers Biden claimed to be after, but also unfairly penalized law-abiding dealers for simple paperwork errors. As a result, the number of federal firearm licensees decreased by more than 1,600 since Biden took office.

In August 2024, ATF issued a lengthy directive to its inspectors reminding them that “not every repeat violation is per se willful.” It also sets out, in mind-numbing detail, the circumstances that must be present to justify a revocation. According to gun-skeptical The Trace, these “adjustments” actually proved minor and only led to a “slight” reduction in revocations.

     ATF ’s failure to scrap its “zero-tolerance” approach got its ultimate comeuppance on February 7, 2025. That’s when President Trump issued Executive Order “Protecting Second Amendment Rights.”  This Order, which is on the White House website, commands the Attorney General to devise a “plan of action” that would “protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.” Probes are required in three key areas:

(i) All Presidential and agencies’ actions from January 2021 through January 2025 that purport to promote safety but may have impinged on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens;
(ii) Rules promulgated by the Department of Justice, including by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, from January 2021 through January 2025 pertaining to firearms and/or Federal firearms licensees;
(iii) Agencies’ plans, orders, and actions regarding the so-called “enhanced regulatory enforcement policy” pertaining to firearms and/or Federal firearms licensees…

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     And now, of course, there’s newly-confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel. He was given ATF’s reins as well. Portrayed by The Trace as “cozy with the most extreme flank of the gun rights movement,” Mr. Patel has reportedly suggested abolishing ATF altogether. One-time Secret Service agent Dan Bongino, a notoriously “Red” podcaster whom Mr. Patel brought in as his deputy, has expressed deep hostility towards the FBI. He also once posted on X that “the Second Amendment was NOT a suggestion.”

     On the positive side, ATF’s core mission – combatting violent crime – continues to draw favorable attention, and even from its purported critics. Consider Ed Martin, whom President Trump recently appointed as D.C.’s acting U.S. Attorney. To “make D.C. safe again” he announced a campaign to prosecute gun-toting felons on Federal charges, and got a dozen extra ATF agents to help. In the recent past Mr. Martin openly criticized the Capitol riot cases as needless distractions from the fight against violence, and he seems to be an Administration favorite. So maybe there is hope for ATF.

     Now, if we could only be sure that Elon Musk won’t try to rescind retired agents’ pensions...

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RELATED GOVERNMENT REPORTS

DOJ audit of ATF’s process to oversee Federal Firearms licensees (2023)

RELATED ESSAYS AND ARTICLES

Sources of Crime Guns in Los Angeles, California      The Pistol That Killed Officer Heim

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Who’s Under the Gun? The FBI, That’s Whom     Do Gun Laws Work?     Where Do They Come From?

Long Live Gun Control

ALL IN THE FAMILY (PART II)

A decade after Part I, domestic killings remain commonplace

     For Police Issues by Julius (Jay) Wachtel. West Valley City, Utah isn’t crime-free. But with 134,470 residents and five murders in 2023, the working-class suburb’s 2023 homicide rate of 3.7 per 100,000 pop. was less than half Salt Lake City’s 7.6. West Valley’s peaceful mien, though, took a heavy hit on December 17 when a critically wounded teen and five family members were found shot dead in their home. Officers found a handgun under the father’s body. It’s believed that the 42-year old man used the weapon to massacre his family, then commit suicide.

     Our source of information about domestic shootings, the Gun Violence Archive, codes this episode a “family annihilation.” Alas, such tragedies are by no means rare. Here’s a few we recently came across while perusing news stories for our daily Police Issues updates:

Click here for the complete collection of gun control essays

• December 2024, Milpitas, Calif.: Prosperous places are hardly immune. In the tony Silicon Valley community of 80,000, a welfare check prompted by relatives led cops to discover the bodies of a middle-aged couple and their two children. As in West Valley, police found a gun – it was legally registered to the father – and concluded that he massacred his family, then committed suicide. Mom and Dad were going through a divorce. Dad, who reportedly had mental problems, had just bought the gun.
   
• October 2024, Tijeras, New Mexico: Family shooters aren’t always dads. Rural New Mexico deputies were called to a home where neighbors had heard gunfire. Inside they found an armed twenty-four year old who was unhurt but “covered in blood.” And in a nearby ravine they discovered the bodies of his mom, dad and 17-year old sister, whom the young man had admittedly shot dead. He used his mother’s legally-acquired gun. His motive was undisclosed, but he apparently had mental health issues.
   
• December 2024, Belen, New Mexico: Some shooters are mere teens. In a working class suburb of Albuquerque an “extremely intoxicated” 17-year old informed 9-1-1 that he had just massacred his family. He surrendered to deputies without incident. Inside the home they found the bodies of his mom, dad and two brothers, ages 14 and 16. Each had been shot dead, apparently with the handgun that was on the kitchen table.
   
• October 2024, Fall City, Washington: Youngsters regularly figure in family massacres. Consider the 15-year old who told 9-1-1 that his brother “just shot my whole family and committed suicide too.” Only problem is, the caller was the killer. He used his father’s pistol to murder both his parents and three siblings, ages 7, 9 and 13. Only his 11-year old sister survived, and that’s because, although wounded, she had managed to flee through a window. She told police that her brother “had recently gotten into 'a lot of trouble' for failing some tests at school.”

     “Kids With Guns” focused on school shootings. While plentiful, their numbers are no match for the appalling frequency of the gunplay that besets American homes. A decade ago, our prior foray into domestic violence, “All in the Family” (Part I), focused on episodes where fathers slaughtered their families. We now take a more inclusive approach. Using Gun Violence Archive data, we selected all incidents of gun violence in 2023 across the 50 States (D.C. and territories excluded) that involved domestic violence, had a single assailant, and where one or more victims were wounded or killed. Here are the totals broken down by assailant age:

Here are the incidents coded by the Archive as a “family annihilation”:

     As this graph demonstrates, States (each is a “dot”) experienced markedly different outcomes. Still, their 2023 domestic violence incident rates tracked their 2023 gun death rates quite closely. States with low incident rates generally had low gun death rates, and those with higher incident rates suffered from elevated gun death rates. That relationship is reflected in the “r” (correlation) statistic. It ranges from zero, meaning no relationship between variables, to 1, which designates a perfect, lock-step relationship. Of course, accurate data reporting is a must. Check out Wyoming (top left dot.) Although its gun death rate was a substantial 20.6, it reported only one incident of gun-involved domestic violence in 2023. Removing Wyoming from the picture increased the overall r between incident rate and gun death rate to a substantial .82.

     What might lower the frequency of domestic violence incidents that involve gunplay? Fewer gun-owning households and stronger gun laws are two approaches.

• FAO - pct. household firearms ownership: We computed the correlation between 2023 state firearms ownership data from Rand and each State’s domestic violence incident rate. It produced a  moderate r= .48. While they’re clearly not in lock-step, more guns are generally associated with more incidents of domestic firearms violence. Of course, accurate reporting is a must. Once again, note incident-less Wyoming at the lower right. Removing it from the calculation increased the overall “r” between FAO and the incident rate to a considerably heftier .56.
  
  
• GLS - State gun law strength: Giffords’  State gun law strength scores (but with the order reversed so that 1 represents the State with the weakest gun laws and 50 the strongest) were correlated with State domestic violent incident rates. At r= -.43 the relationship is also only moderate (the r is negative, meaning that the variables move in opposite directions). As law strength goes up, incidents decrease; again, not in lockstep. However, pulling out incident-less Wyoming (lower left) strengthened the correlation to a more respectable r= -.51.
  
  

     Tinkering with gun ownership and gun laws might also be useful for other purposes. State gun death rates, which are available through CDC Wonder, include suicides. In 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, over half of suicides – 54.6 percent – were committed with a gun. We computed the correlation between gun suicides and firearms ownership (FAO). It came in at a startling, near-perfect r= .92. Gun suicide’s association with gun law strength (GLS) was also quite strong, at r= -.78. Suicides, though, were only weakly related with our “usual suspect,” poverty. Their r was only .18.

     Alas, in the land of “r” there’s always a catch. Household gun ownership and gun law strength are themselves strongly correlated. Their r= -.81 is negative: as one increases the other decreases, and very much in sync. Problem is, strong mutual ties between “causal” variables can distort the magnitude of their individual correlations with the “effect” variable of interest (i.e., gun suicide.) Check out this table:

Applying the statistical technique of “partial correlation” reveals that when we “control” for gun law strength – that is, remove its influence – the correlation between firearms ownership and gun suicide recedes from r= .92 to r= .79. Still, it remains a hefty number. But when we take gun ownership out of the picture, the sizeable -.78 r between gun law strength and suicide drops to a measly -.15. This suggests that gun law strength’s original relationship with gun suicides was mostly due to the influence of gun ownership.

     CDC Wonder reports 48,204 gun deaths in 2022, the most recent year with full data. However, it considers rates for six States and D.C. unreliable, likely because their death counts may have been understated (i.e., Wyoming). For the 43 States with fully reliable stat’s, the CDC reported 47,279 gun deaths. About 56 percent were suicides (26,385) and 41 percent (19,397) were homicides. But only a small proportion involved incidents of domestic violence. According to the Gun Violence Archive, 2,165 gun deaths in 2022 (1,657 victims, 508 suspects) stemmed from a domestic dispute. That’s about 4.6 percent of the CDC’s modified (43-State) gun death count and 11 percent of its modified gun homicide count.

     Still, our graphs suggest that stiffening gun laws and reducing household firearms ownership can help. As for gun suicides, limiting household gun ownership seems to be the undisputed “champ.” It makes perfect sense that having fewer guns at home will lead to less lethal misuse by their inhabitants. Getting there, though, isn’t so simple. “Blue” California, which Giffords credits for having the strictest gun laws in the U.S., suffered 87 domestic violence incidents in 2023 that met our criteria (single assailant; one or more victims wounded or killed). While its incident rate of 0.2/100,000 pop. was one of the lowest, it was nonetheless matched by Massachusetts and New Jersey and bested by New York (it came in at 0.1).

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     What else could be done? That’s simple: eliminate poverty. We’ve often examined its role in crime. (Check out “Policing Can’t Fix What Really Ails” and “See no Evil – Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil”.) No, poor people aren’t criminals. But poverty acts as a robust container for a host of real-world factors – broken homes, lack of childhood supervision, gang activity, lousy education, poor job skills, lack of health supports – whose collective influence may be the most proximate “cause” of criminal misbehavior. And, perhaps, of domestic violence shootings. This graph examines the relationship between 2023 State pct. of households in poverty from the Census and the Gun Violence Archive’s 2023 State domestic violence incident rates:

Alas, if cops could only do something about poverty…

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Household firearms ownership     Domestic violence incidents     Gun law strength and gun death rate

Poverty and population

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Kids With Guns     Policing Can’t Fix What Really Ails     See No Evil – Hear no Evil – Speak no Evil

All in the Family (Part I)

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