ATF established the Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative (YCGII)
in 1996 to focus special agent and inspector resources on reducing
youth gun violence. To increase our effectiveness, we resolved to
equip our investigators and their State and local counterparts with
more facts about how violent youth obtained guns. We asked our colleagues
in State and local law enforcement to help us systematically follow
the gun used in crime to help identify violent criminals and
their illegal suppliers by tracing all crime guns with the National
Tracing Center.
These
crime gun traces, which use a guns serial number to track its
transfers from manufacturer to retail purchase, lead law enforcement
to sources of illegal diversion, gun traffickers, and violent criminals,
and contribute to successful prosecutions. This report provides examples
of successful cases against such offenders. In the past, the case
an agent made with trace information would likely have been the last
case using that information. Every investigator would start a new
case relying on new leads. As these Crime Gun Trace Reports demonstrate,
that era is over in law enforcement. Today,
law enforcement officials can and do access, search, and analyze investigative
and case information contributed by hundreds of their colleagues,
to gain additional investigative leads and strategic perspective.
Recently,
we examined our firearms investigative docket and learned that over
a quarter of ATFs investigations into the illegal diversion of
guns involved felons. This allowed us to confirm what ATF agents and
their State and local colleagues have known but not previously documented
there is a sizable illegal market in firearms involving felons,
juveniles, and other illegal possessors and traffickers of firearms.
It includes corrupt federally licensed dealers who ignore the results
of background checks, straw purchasers, unlicensed sellers, thieves,
and traffickers in stolen firearms, among others.
Collecting
and analyzing information from thousands of crime gun traces supplied
by Federal, State, and local law enforcement are helping us gain a more
precise picture of that crime gun market and provide investigative and
strategic direction to enforcement aimed at gun crime. This years
reports, the third annual publication of Crime Gun Trace Reports, include
this National Report and a series of individual City Reports, which
provide complete information on the trace results in those cities. These
reports are available at www.atf.treas.gov.
Of
great value to law enforcement are the lists of guns that repeatedly
show up in crimes and that do so rapidly after purchase, suggesting
criminal intent associated with the original transaction. Every city
has its own crime guns and patterns, reflecting local conditions, but
certain local, regional, and national patterns are evident. This information
permits law enforcement officials to tailor investigative strategies
to the most violent criminals and juveniles, local hot spots,
and illegal sources of guns.Knowing
the changing trends in crime guns is also vital to ensuring officer
safety.
Crime
gun tracing and its complementary tool, ballistics identification, are
rapidly transforming Federal, State, and local firearms enforcement.
We cannot completely stop violent criminals from using illegal means
to acquire guns, but we can track their methods with greater precision
than ever before, intervene to stop trafficking schemes, investigate
both illegal suppliers and their criminal buyers, and fully enforce
our Nations firearms laws to deter gun criminals and hold them
accountable. We are at the beginning of the new era of using available
crime gun and ballistics information to solve and prevent gun crimes.
We present this years Crime Gun Trace Reports as an information
cornerstone of our efforts to reduce violent crime, disarm the criminal,
and better protect our Nations youth.