Firearms tracing is a major component of the ATF’s strategic initiatives and goals (see ATF n.d.a, n.d.b). For many crime-related guns, the ability to trace firearms to a first-time retail sale provides potentially valuable information regarding possible sources of firearms trafficking and the possession and use of firearms by prohibited persons and violent criminals. Analysis of ATF investigations indicates that firearms trace data have been a useful tool in many trafficking investigations. A detailed analysis of 1,530 firearms trafficking investigations initiated during the period from July 1996 to December 1998 found that ”almost 30% of investigations (448 of 1,530) were initiated through the innovative investigative methods of information analysis—analysis of firearms trace data, multiple sales records, or both (ATF 2000, x).
Further, after the initiation of investigations, tracing was used as an investigative tool to gain information on recovered crime guns in 60% of the investigations. Examples of the value of firearms trace information for strategic law enforcement planning are available in ATF’s reports (for example, ATF 2002) and other analyses of firearms trace data (see Kennedy, Piehl, and Braga 1996; Pierce et al. 2003, 2004).
ATF’s legal mandates place some restrictions on how firearms trace data can be used by law enforcement and the policy makers. ATF’s legal mandates limiting what firearms-related data the agency can store in a central database repository (see Federal Register 1978) make it difficult to trace firearms beyond the first-time retail purchaser of a firearm. The restriction against the centralized storage of information on firearms (for example, the serial numbers of firearms sold or the FFLs making the sales) means that the ATF typically has no record of the sale of secondhand guns. Although it is possible to trace a crime gun past the point of its first retail sale through a process of the ATF agent interviewing subsequent gun possessors (that is, ”investigative traces”), this is a time-consuming process that cannot be applied to most firearms trace requests. In addition to restrictions on the management of firearms trace data, Congress has also recently placed limits on what type of information can be provided to the public. Specifically, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2004 prohibits the ATF from disclosing to the public information required to be kept as a record by an FFL (as mandated by law) or FFL information reported to the ATF.
