Thank you, Joe (Zima), for that very kind introduction. I am honored that he asked me to address all of you tonight.

Earlier today I had the pleasure of meeting with Dean Concannon over at the law school and he was gracious enough to give me a tour of the building. Of course, the courtroom and some of the classrooms looked disturbingly unchanged. I could almost feel the trepidation I experienced as a first year law student.

One of the things I was looking for was the job placement board where I first heard of ATF. I had run across a 3x5 card on the job placement board while I was studying for the bar exam. The once crowded board was reduced to a handful of scattered cards. One described an attorney job in Chicago with an agency I had never heard of - the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Well, I was going to Chicago after the bar exam and it sounded interesting so I called and set up an interview. By the time I got there, the vacancy was filled. But, since I was there, I still went through with the interview with the regional counsel who happened to be originally from Kansas City.

We had a nice chat that mostly involved him describing the work of the agency and talking about Kansas City. He said he would forward my application to Washington in case something came up somewhere else. I never expected to hear from ATF again. Within two weeks I received a letter offering me a job in ATF's Washington headquarters. I have to tell you though that I had no idea in the world what I was getting into with ATF. I did work in a liquor store during law school. I smoked cigarettes at the time, and I had returned to Kansas from Wyoming, a state where there are probably more firearms than people. That was the about the extent of my knowledge of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms.

I also found there was a little false advertising going on in that name because I came to find this agency also enforced Federal explosives and arson laws. But to be honest, the real draw was the opportunity to move to Washington DC. And the outrageously high annual salary of around $13,000 made me take the job. What I found was an incredibly exciting job dealing with a wide array issues, albeit within a fairly narrow set of products. As our name implies, our mission is as much about what we deal with, as it is skills we bring to bear.

When you hear IRS you think - tax agency, when you hear FBI you think investigative agency, and when you hear FDA or FTC you think regulatory agencies. What I discovered was that ATF is all of the above and more.

All of the controversial products we deal with involve the coordinated exercise of all of those powers in order to effectively deal with these legal, - but often problem causing products.

As you just heard, I was recently appointed director of ATF in December. It has been a very full five months. In that period we have been embroiled in controversies dealing with health related claims on alcohol beverages, increased taxes and new regulatory systems for cigarettes, and legislation involved gun shows, just to name a few.

By Federal standards we are small. We have around 4300 employees nationwide. We regulate somewhere in the neighborhood of 160,000 businesses dealing with alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives. Annually, we collect $13 billion in taxes.

The regulatory and tax statutes for the most part serve as the underlying Federal authority for the criminal laws relating to these products. As an agency of the Treasury Department we are uniquely positioned to blend these various different Federal authorities into cohesive Federal policies and strategies.

This evening I would like to focus on our strategies for the enforcement of Federal firearms statutes. Who knows, in the process I might even dispel some of the myths surrounding our mission and goals.

First, I would note that the crime stoppers defining phrase is "Working together to solve crime." This sounds not all that different from ATF's which is "Working for a sound and safer America through innovation and partnerships." [either great minds think alike, or we had the same organizational consultants come up with a catchy phrase - I prefer to think the latter.]

All kidding aside, both of our statements recognize that as this world becomes more complex, and social problems more complicated - the days when everyone could just take of their own business, their own jurisdiction are gone.

We are discovering the fundamental truth that in working together - the whole of what we can accomplish exceeds the sum of the parts.

Both Crime Stoppers and ATF are also expanding in similar directions because of the ever so troubling increase in youth crime. In particular, I know that you have developed programs to take Crime Stoppers into the schools to help stem the ever-rising tide of youth-related violence. As the leader of a law enforcement agency, I can tell you that this is a good step. Again, ATF has likewise developed programs for schools. As a parent, I applaud you and thank you for your efforts.

In protecting our country, we must pay particular attention to our youth and the circumstances of the devastating trend in violence that surrounds them. This effort is particularly critical given the fact that more and more of these young people are turning to firearms, often illegally gained, to perpetrate violence.

You know, it used to be that disputes between kids were settled with fistfights. These days, whether it's a matter of responding to perceived disrespect, or a drug deal gone bad, or some warped sense of being ready to go out in a blaze of glory, the gun is all too often the tool of choice.

In Washington, we saw it again last week when groups of kids fought outside the National Zoo, of all places. When juveniles are involved, and one kills another, intentionally or not, two lives are tragically lost. The victim -- who is cut down before his life could really begin, and the shooter, -- whose life is almost certainly lost to a life of crime.

What then can we do? How can we save our children from being drawn into the destructive culture of gun violence?

With an estimated 250 million firearms in private hands in the United States, and another 2 to 3 million new firearms entering that stream every year, the problem can seem intractable. If each organization tries to combat this problem alone, we will be overwhelmed. Law enforcement must work together as a team with civic and community organizations to make a difference.

We must also work with, and often times, rely on, private citizens who offer the tips that can break a case wide open, ultimately saving lives.

Unfortunately, our problems are not limited to the worst of criminals. We all know that when illegal guns are just too common a commodity, and are readily available through too many sources, they find their way into to the hands of our children. Today, in too many cities, every young person predisposed to trouble can create it with a gun.

To make a difference we must engage together and come from multiple directions.

Unlike narcotics or other contraband, virtually every firearm starts out legal and with documentation of its movement. At the very least, we can almost always identify when and where a firearm left the legal distribution system. Whether by theft, or illegal sale, or legal sales to those who would, in turn, traffic in firearms, our tracing systems will give us leads on where the problem lies. The more crime guns that we trace, the clearer and more accurate a picture can emerge from our efforts.

When I first started at ATF, annual gun traces were counted in the thousands. Now we know that gun trace information can be a gold mine of information - but, only if every gun is traced and careful analysis is made of the information.

In just the last year, we traced over 200,000 crime guns. Over time, with more crime guns being traced, our tracing efforts have moved from one of solving individual crimes to one that also identifies the traffickers who appear as a common thread through multiple crimes.

ATF has established a crime gun analysis section at our National Tracing Center to provide us with a better understanding of the trends and patterns in the crime gun market.

Around the country, ATF offices have established firearms trafficking groups where agents can gain online access to years of trace data. With a computer program we call "Online Lead," our agents can sort, compare, and perform link analysis on data to identify traffickers.

Eight years ago without comprehensive trace data, ATF could not effectively deploy our limited inspection resources to the over 100,000 Federal firearms licensees. Now our crime gun tracing studies have shown that over 57% of all traces come from just over 1% of all dealers.

We have made an effort to target these thousand or so licensees for comprehensive inspections to find out why the guns they sell have a greater tendency to wind up in the hands of criminals. This is an important first step. We don't expect to find that all these dealers are bad.

Our experience tells us that some portion of this 1,000 or so dealers will be reputable businesses that even go the extra mile to carefully monitor their sales and actively seek to help law enforcement when they can. Others will be dealers who do everything by the book, but who might still be far from vigilant about who they sell to beyond the strict legal requirements. And, in some cases, we expect to find bad dealers. And we intend to hold them strictly accountable. In every case we will learn more about how firearms are moving from legal commerce to the illegal market. We will be able to more thoughtfully design inspection measures and recommend possible law changes that would deal with the problems we document.

Advances in computer technology are also expanding our ability to focus on crime guns. The best example is in the area of ballistics comparisons. Ballistics experts can compare marks left on shell casings or projectiles recovered at a crime scene to the markings left on samples made by test fires of a suspect firearm and authoritatively conclude whether the suspect firearms was used in the crimes.

Each firearm leaves unique markings that amount to a "fingerprint." As you can imagine, this is a painstaking process, and it was not realistic that a recovered firearm could be test fired and manually compared against every piece of ballistics evidence recovered from every crime. Today, computers can do just that. A computer can't make the ultimate call, but they can narrow the work down to a point where manual examinations are feasible.

ATF is now making this computer technology available to police authorities around the country through the National Integrated Ballistics Identification Network (NIBIN). This network is a joint effort between ATF and the FBI to provide the latest technology to state and local law enforcement.

Currently this provides a valuable tool for law enforcement authorities that will allow us to associate a suspect or a firearm with seemingly unrelated crimes or actual unrelated crimes. The future of this technology offers even greater potential.

ATF is now conducting a pilot project with one handgun manufacturer, wherein they will capture the digital image of the spent shell casings from the normal during the test fire process. That image will be associated with the serial number of the firearm in a computer database. Later, if a shell casing is recovered at a crime scene, it could be compared against the manufacturer's database. This comparison could lead to the identification of the exact weapon that fired the round. Without ever recovering a firearm, ATF could then trace the weapon used in the crime.

In law enforcement we have learned that we will never simply arrest our way out of the cycle of violence.

But, by the same token, unless we address the core set of the most violent offenders, whose ruthless presence perpetuates the cycle of violence, we stand little chance of turning things around. While we cannot stop all firearms violence, we must make criminals pay a price when they are caught.

Programs like Project Exile in Richmond, Virginia, CEASEFIRE in Boston, and FELON here in Kansas, are a key part of our strategy to address those who misuse firearms.

With all these programs designed to combat violence, we must also have hope in preventive measures. Efforts to work with kids before patterns of crime, violence, and gang membership are adopted, must also be a key component of our efforts.

Our G.R.E.A.T. Program had its beginnings in Phoenix, Arizona, when ATF and the Phoenix Police Department designed a program that involved agents and police officers interacting with grade school children.

The key elements were teaching a variety of life skills that would help them say no to gangs, while using police officials as instructors to establish a positive relationship with children who would otherwise grow up learning that the police were to be feared.

We also have hope in the strength that comes from every day citizens making the call that leads to the apprehension of criminals.

Catching criminals takes a lot of work, and law enforcement not only needs each other at different levels, but central to this endeavor is the help of the citizens of this nation.

Law enforcement cannot be everywhere all the time. It's just not possible. Thankfully we can rely on you.

The work of Crime Stoppers also plays a well-documented role in solving crimes. I want thank you for the work you do in organizing and overseeing the crime stopper programs -- and for having faith that people will reach out to law enforcement to protect their fellow man.

I applaud your efforts. Your work is invaluable towards making this world safer and more secure -for citizens everywhere, but most especially for our children. Thank you!

I began tonight by recognizing the similarities between the way in which we describe our respective missions. Let me end by borrowing another thought from the Crime Stoppers playbook. I recall reading that "Crime Stoppers Business is Everyone's Business." At ATF, our guiding principle in enforcing the Federal firearms laws is to assist our State and local partners in their fight with violent crime. With that in mind, I hope we can all agree that "ATF's business is everyone's business." Thank you and God bless.