Source: http://davidkopel.org/2A/LawRev/CluelessBATFtracing.htm
Timestamp: 2017-03-30 20:25:04
Document Index: 559969757

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 923', '§ 36', '§ 400', '§ 12071', '§ 129', '§ 6', '§ 924', '§ 922']

B. Kopel [a1]
1999 L. Rev. Mich. St. U. Det. C.L. 171. More by Kopel on the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and BATFE tracing.
Review of Michigan State University Detroit College of Law
© 1998 Detroit College
of Law at Michigan State University; David
B. Kopel
Introduction .............................................................. 171 I. Traced Guns Are Not a Surrogate for Crime Guns in General ............ 173 A. Only a Small Fraction of Crime Guns Are Traced by BATF ............ 173 B. Most Gun Traces Are Not Associated with Violent Crime ............. 175 C. Traces Do Not Reveal How or Why a Gun Was Moved Interstate ........ 177 II. "Assault Weapons": Police Data Show BATF Traces to Overestimate Criminal Use by 1000% .............................................. 179 Conclusion ................................................................ 184 Introduction
ancient Greece, priests would slaughter a sacrificial animal, and then
carefully examine the animal's entrails. The priests and their followers both
believed that by "reading entrails," one could forecast the future.
This process, fortunately, has become less messy these days: rather than using
entrails, our modern fact-inventors use something much cleaner, but no more
reliable: trace data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms ("BATF").
Today, powerful leaders also make unsupportable claims based on
"information" which was never intended to be used in such a manner.
every major firearms control proposal (including "assault weapons"
bans, [1] the Brady Act [2],
gun purchase rationing, [3] bans on small
handguns [4], and eliminating home-based
firearms dealers [5]) is touted on the basis of
the "scientific" evidence provided by BATF traces. The staff of
Representative Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) earned itself a large amount of
favorable publicity in 1997 by using BATF traces to create what Representative
Schumer called "the first study that shows conclusively that gun control
works." [6] Unfortunately, BATF tracing
data was never intended to be used for policy guidance and is unsuitable for
that purpose. To build the case for a particular gun law on the basis of BATF
traces is to admit that there is no relevant data to support the law.
Only a small and unrepresentative fraction of
guns which are seized by the police are ever traced by BATF and, for this
reason, BATF has repeatedly stated that its trace data cannot be used to draw
conclusions about patterns of criminal gun use or acquisition. The BATF's
National Tracing Center advises police departments that the trace data
"ONLY reflects trends relating to those firearms for which a trace
request is submitted and is only as accurate as the information provided by
the trace requesters."[7]
contrast to certain other federal programs (such as the FBI's Uniform Crime
Reporting system), BATF's tracing program was never designed for sociological
data gathering. To the contrary, BATF tracing was designed to provide law
enforcement with a quick, easy, low-cost opportunity to trace the history of a
particular gun as part of an investigation of a particular crime. But do the
BATF traces also provide accurate information about the nature of armed crime
in general? [8]
One below explores various reasons why gun traces are not good substitutes for
information about actual gun use and sales patterns. Part Two examines one
case in which it is possible to compare BATF trace data with actual police
crime data, namely, the use of "assault weapons" in crime.
Traced Guns Are Not a Surrogate for Crime Guns in General
federal law, all firearms manufactured or imported into the United States must
have a serial number. [9] Firearms
manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers are required to keep precise records
of the serial number of each gun they transfer. [10]
Thus, if a particular gun is found at a crime scene, the BATF can, using the
serial number, trace the chain of custody of the gun from its manufacture to
its sale at retail. From there, law enforcement authorities can interview the
retail buyer, to attempt to investigate how the gun eventually came into
criminal hands (e.g., the gun was stolen from the lawful retail purchaser).
Only a Small Fraction of Crime Guns Are Traced by BATF
an average year, there are at least a million violent crimes committed with
firearms. [11] Each year, the Federal Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms ("BATF") is asked to trace about
25,000 violent crime guns (plus many more guns associated with possessory
offenses), or about less than one gun per forty violent gun crimes. About one
in two gun homicides results in a BATF trace, compared to one in fifty gun
assaults, and one in a hundred gun robberies. [12]
One reason that few violent crime guns are traced
is that information about the chain of custody from manufacturer to retail
sale is often not necessary for prosecution of state and local gun crimes. [13]
After all, a District Attorney bringing an armed robbery case needs to prove
that the defendant used a gun, not that the defendant used a gun with a
particular pedigree. In some cases, local police may find it faster to conduct
a trace themselves than to ask BATF to perform the trace. [14]
some jurisdictions, such as New York, Maryland, California, New Jersey, and
Massachusetts, keep detailed records of all legal ownership of handguns, or of
all guns. [15] These jurisdictions would
logically use their own records first for gun tracing, and would turn to BATF
only when their own data failed. [16]
The small percentage of guns selected for a trace
request are not a random sample, but rather a select group chosen by local
police departments. [17] According to basic
statistics theory, a non-random sample is very unlikely to accurately
represent the larger whole. [18]
the Congressional Research Service cautions that the "firearms (which
the) Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms selected for tracing cannot be
"ATF tracing data could be potentially biased." [19]
reason that BATF traces are not representative is that BATF currently rejects
most requests to trace pre-1990 guns, since data for these guns are less
readily available. [20]
is easy to see how the pre-1990s exclusion could skew results. In the 1990s,
the majority of handgun sales were semiautomatics, while most handgun sales
from earlier years were revolvers. [21] A
trace sample limited to post-1990 guns would likely overstate the prevalence
of semiautomatics relative to revolvers.
the refusal to trace pre-1990 guns will also skew the types of long guns which
are traced. So-called "assault weapons" were big sellers in the
1980s and early 1990s, but were a very small part of the firearms market in
most prior decades. [22] Thus, limiting
traces to only guns made after 1990 will artificially inflate the percentage
of "assault weapons" which are traced.
studies have found that between forty and sixty percent of BATF gun traces
fail. [23] This creates a situation similar
to a pollster finding that half of the persons polled refuse to answer certain
questions. Elementary statistics theory requires that a data gatherer not
ignore the "non-response bias." [24]
Thus, the subset of guns for which traces are successful is even less likely
to resemble crime guns in general.
Most Gun Traces Are Not Associated with Violent Crime
crimes account for only one-seventh of BATF traces. [25]
At least half of BATF traces are for possession offenses. [26]
To the extent that any generalizations can be drawn from BATF trace data,
these generalizations are about gun owners whose gun possession violated some
kind of ordinance or statute, but who did not use their gun for illegal
1992, anti-gun lobbyists touted BATF trace data from the first nine months of
1991 to argue that as much as forty-one percent of New York City
"crime" guns came from Virginia. [27]
But of the New York City firearms traced to Virginia during the first nine
months of 1991, only thirty- two guns (or one-sixth of the traces) were used
in a violent crime. [28] The rest were
associated with technical violations of New York City's arduous handgun
licensing scheme, or other non-violent offenses. [29]
Forty-seven percent of the violations involved weapons possession crimes
(including simple possession of an unlicensed gun in the home); thirty-five
percent involved other non-violent offenses (such as possessing a handgun and
a gram of cocaine in the same apartment). [30]
A 1970s national analysis of handgun seizures
found that twenty to twenty- five percent of police handgun seizures were not
associated with any crime, not even a licensing violation. [31]
Some of the guns traced by BATF might just have been turned into the police by
lawful owners who wanted to get rid of them. (For example, a widow who wanted
to dispose of her husband's hunting rifle). [32]
New York City, obtaining a handgun license is very difficult. Although New
York law requires the police to act on license applications within six months,
delays of nearly a year are routine-even for crime witnesses who are being
threatened by criminals out on bail. [33] In
addition, it is nearly impossible for an applicant to get a license to carry a
handgun, unless the applicant is named "Donald Trump," in which case
the carry permit will be granted in a few days.
Because obtaining a New York City handgun permit
is very difficult for unwealthy people who cannot afford lawyers, many
citizens obtain handguns illegally; they adopt the adage that "it is
better to be judged by twelve than to be carried by six." They would
rather face the risk of prosecution for an unlicensed handgun than face the
risk of living in New York City without a handgun.
the same story can be told for Washington, D.C., where crime is even worse
than New York City, where the police are notoriously ineffective, and where
handgun purchases and possession are entirely illegal. [34]
to the extent that any conclusions could be drawn from BATF trace data, the
conclusions show that guns from other states are used to evade a prohibition
(Washington, D.C.) or near-prohibition (New York City) on handgun ownership by
non-elites. The trace data, by themselves, do not show that other states are
the main source of guns for violent criminals in New York City or Washington
D.C., because five-sixths of traces do not involve violent crime.
Indeed, the artificially-created "gun
criminals" in New York or Washington D.C., who own handguns under
circumstances which would be entirely lawful in Virginia or other states,
(possession of a handgun for home protection) are much more likely to own a
traceable handgun than are actual violent criminals. A person owning a handgun
for home defense would have little reason to file off the serial number.
However, according to a study sponsored by the National Institute of Justice,
sixty percent of actual felons consider a gun's untraceability to be
"very important" and another twenty-one percent consider it to be
"a little" or "somewhat" important. [35]
course no one would even bother to attempt to trace a gun from which the
serial number had been removed (sometimes the serial number can be removed
through advanced forensics, but the process is difficult, and used very
rarely). This is one more reason why the traced guns are generally not similar
to non-traced guns.
Traces Do Not Reveal How or Why a Gun Was Moved Interstate
traces show the history of the gun from its manufacture, purchase by a
wholesaler, sale to a federally-licensed gun dealer, and then retail sale.
Except when special investigators are assigned to perform field interviews,
traces do not, and cannot, trace the history of the gun beyond retail sale.
Hence, a trace may discover that a gun was manufactured in Connecticut,
purchased by a Florida wholesaler, and sold to a customer at a Houston gun
store. If police confiscate the gun in New York City, the trace does not tell
us whether:
The gun was purchased in Texas by a gun-runner and then sold to a New York
City criminal;
The gun was stolen from the lawful Texas owner,
sold several times on the black market, and eventually sold in New York City; [36]
The gun was carried into New York City by a
Texan who moved to New York City. The ex-Texan committed no crime other than
failing to spend hundreds of dollars to obtain a New York City handgun
widely-publicized study by Representative Charles Schumer's staff presumes
that the first possibility is the only possibility, since it attributes all
interstate gun movement to gun-running, never mentioning other, more common
possibilities. [37] The BATF data which
Schumer used does not specify how the guns moved between states.
tracing reports conducted by BATF do not even investigate how a gun moved from
its state of retail sale to the state where the gun was found. For example,
the 1991 BATF report on gun traces from New York City to Virginia cautioned,
"Project Lead does not attempt to determine if a Virginia gun found in
New York had been stolen from a Virginian, and then transported to New
York." [38]
Contrary to the Schumer assumption that
interstate gun movement must be the result of organized gun-running, a BATF
study of interstate gun transport found "that the majority of firearm
movement from (s)tates is occurring on an individual basis. That is to say
that an individual will acquire a firearm in another (s)tate through the
actual purchase by relatives and friends and then transport the firearm
back." [39] Self-protection is the
primary motive for such transfers, the BATF reported. [40]
course, an intra-family transaction might not necessarily be legal; federal
law makes it illegal for persons other than licensed dealers to sell handguns
to persons from another state. And criminals, like ordinary citizens, do buy
guns for self-defense. Nevertheless, the BATF data make it clear that
interstate gun transfers are usually small-scale and involve guns sold through
private transfers, not from retail outlets. [41]
Thus, the picture painted by gun control advocates such as Representative
Schumer-a picture of large volume interstate transfers of guns purchased
directly from licensed retail dealers-is contrary to the known data.
difference between the Schumer scenario and the BATF facts has major policy
implications. If the Schumer scenario were true, it would support his
proposals for even greater federal regulation of retail gun sales. Federal
regulation not only would make sense because licensed dealers, wanting to keep
their license, would obey federal gun laws, but also because licensed dealers
are (supposedly) the main source of interstate guns.
in truth, the data shows just the opposite. Interstate transfers are primarily
private transfers between family and friends. There is no realistic
possibility that these individual transfers can be controlled by federal
statute. To the extent that the interstate transfers involve transfers between
two family members, both of whom are criminals, it is especially unlikely that
federal statutes would have any preventive effect. If the private interstate
transfer is somehow discovered by the police, current federal laws already
provide severe mandatory sentences for illegal interstate gun sales and for
the transfer of firearms to persons with any felony conviction or with
misdemeanor domestic violence convictions. [42]
"Assault Weapons": Police Data Show BATF Traces to Overestimate
Criminal Use by 1000%
hell with statistical theory," some people might say. "Whatever the
objections raised by skeptics, we still think that gun traces provide good
data about gun crime and gun sales in general, even if the figures might be a
little rough here and there." If
one accepts this argument, then one policy conclusion becomes inescapable:
one-handgun-per-month laws are a failure and should be repealed. The laws
specifying that citizens may purchase only one handgun per month are based on
the premise that purchases of multiple handguns from gun stores are a major
source of supply for interstate gun-runners. According to the Schumer study,
two of the three states that supplied the most guns to New York were Virginia
and South Carolina, the only states in the nation with one-gun-a-month laws at
the time of the study. [43]
dropping one-gun-a-month laws solely because of the Schumer study (or because
of any other analysis of trace statistics) would be a mistake. We know that
trace statistics can result in errors of more than 1000%, and therefore, trace
statistics are so far removed from real-world experience to be of no value in
determining crime policy. (Again, to point out this fact is not to denigrate
the BATF tracing program; the program was designed to solve individual crimes,
not to gather sociological data). One of the most notable real-world instances
in which tracing data was used to "prove" facts which were wholly
contrary to reality was in regard to so-called "assault weapons."
weapon" is a marketing term, whose meaning varies depending on whether
the user of the term is a member of the gun industry or a gun control
advocate. The term generally refers to firearms that have a military-style
appearance. Appearance notwithstanding, "assault weapons" are
functionally indistinguishable from normal-looking guns: they fire only one
bullet with each press of the trigger and the bullets they fire are
intermediate-sized and less powerful than the bullets from big game rifles.
starting in 1989, Handgun Control, Inc., and other anti-gun organizations,
gained national attention by claiming that assault weapons were the
"weapon of choice" among criminals. [44]
political gun ban campaign was significantly bolstered by an article on BATF
traces-a report that, considerably later, was shown to be grossly misleading.
In May 1989, two reporters from the Cox newspaper chain conducted a study of
BATF firearms traces. [45] The reporters
found that for some crimes, assault weapons were involved in approximately ten
percent of the traces. [46] Since
"assault weapons" constitute only about one percent of the total
firearms stock (the reporters asserted), the ten percent trace figure
indicated that "assault weapons" were disproportionately involved in
gun crime. "An assault gun is twenty times more likely to be used in
crime than a conventional firearm," Cox newspapers claimed. [47]
Politicians who wanted to ban guns took up the line. [48]
Police data, however, showed the ten percent figure to be false. [49]
Cox report gave trace percentages for both the nation as a whole (ten percent)
and for selected major cities. [50] The
percentage of "assault weapons" reported by Cox newspapers, based on
the BATF traces, was ten percent for Chicago, nineteen percent for Los
Angeles, eleven percent for New York City, and thirteen percent for
Washington, D.C. [51] In each of those
cities, police departments conducted complete counts of all guns that had been
seized (not just the guns for which the police department requested a BATF
trace).[52] According to the actual police
department counts of crime guns in each city, the percentage of "assault
weapons" were only three percent for Chicago, one percent for Los
Angeles, one percent for New York City, and zero percent for Washington, D.C. [53]
Thus, when the BATF trace sample was compared with the comprehensive police
gun seizure data, BATF traces over- stated the percentage of assault weapons
used in crime by over 1000% for Los Angeles, New York, and Washington.
weapons" were a high percentage of BATF gun traces, but a small
percentage of total crime guns.
Sources: BATF; police departments in respective cities. There
are several reasons why "assault weapons" are more likely to be
selected for a trace request. [54] Many
"assault weapons" have an unusual appearance, which might raise
curiosity (and a trace request) compared to an "old-fashioned" gun,
such as a Smith & Wesson .38 Special. [55]
publicity surrounding "assault weapons" also may have increased
police interest in these weapons, increasing the likelihood that a trace would
be requested. [56] As the Congressional
Research Service noted, "a law enforcement officer may initiate a trace
request for any reason." [57] "If .
. . law enforcement offices in certain regions have determined that certain
types of firearms (such as military-style semiautomatics that accept large
capacity magazines) should be traced because they are thought to be used by
dangerous offenders, the data in the tracing system will reflect those
specific concerns." [58]
data show that high-ranking police administrators, such as big- city police
chiefs, may be far more supportive of gun control in general, and assault
weapon prohibition in particular, than are mid-ranking or street-level law
enforcement officers. [59] As a result, for
the reasons explained by the Congressional Research Service, heightened policy
administration concern about "assault weapons" could result in a
disproportionate percentage of such guns being submitted to BATF for tracing.
addition, almost all "assault weapons" were first sold at retail
after 1968. Before 1968, gun retailers who sold only to in-state customers did
not need a federal firearms license. [60]
Also, before 1968, federal law did not require firearms dealers to maintain
registration records of retail sales. [61]
Thus, successful traces are more likely to be conducted on guns made after
1968-a category which includes a higher percentage of the total stock of
assault weapons than of the total stock of, for example, bolt-action rifles.
While the Cox study was in progress, BATF had a policy of not accepting trace
requests for guns made before the early 1980s. This policy certainly would
cause an increase in the percent of traces involving "assault
It should be noted that the discrepancy between
the BATF traces and the actual crime gun seizures was not confined to the four
major cities discussed above. Researchers have now obtained comprehensive
crime gun data for many cities based on actual inventories of firearms seized
by the police, in not one of the cities does the percentage of "assault
weapons" seized even remotely approach the BATF trace figure of ten
percent. The highest figure was four percent; one percent (or less) was much
more common. [62] Accordingly, it can only be
concluded that BATF firearm trace requests are not an accurate mirror of
actual firearm use in crime.
accompany the temporary federal prohibition on new "assault
weapons," [63] Congress in 1994, ordered
the Attorney General to study whether the ban was changing patterns in
"assault weapon" use by criminals. When asked if data existed to
allow such a study, the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) Section replied,
"The UCR Section knows of no existing data to provide a basis to address
the question." [64] Stated less
delicately, the FBI's statistical experts do not believe that gun traces
provide reliable information about the general use of guns in crime. Lobbyists
and politicians who attempt to use trace data for this purpose should explain
why they think that they are right and the FBI is wrong.
advocates of restrictive gun laws, BATF traces are like psychoanalyst's
inkblots: the viewer always finds in them exactly what he wants to see. Thus,
BATF traces are used to create allegedly "scientific" data to
promote the banning of small and inexpensive guns, [65]
to demonize certain large handguns, [66] to
prove that the Brady Act is working, [67] to
prove that the federal assault weapons ban is working, [68]
to prove that more controls are needed on "assault weapons," [69]
to make the case for eliminating firearms dealer licenses for persons who
operate small businesses from their home, [70]
and to prove that gun rationing laws work. [71]
(mis)use of BATF tracing reports by gun control lobbyists has often worked.
The federal "assault weapons" ban, the Virginia gun rationing law,
and the federal elimination of home-based businesses from the ranks of
licensed firearms dealers all became law with the significant help of claims
made about BATF traces. Proposals for further controls, such as federal
licensing of gun owners, federal gun purchase rationing, and state and federal
bans on small handguns are all predicated on the allegedly scientific
information derived from BATF traces.
English philosopher Jeremy Bentham once derided natural rights as
"nonsense on stilts." [72] Whatever
one thinks about natural rights, Bentham's phrase is an apt description of
attempted use of BATF traces to support gun laws.
the 19th century, practitioners of the "science" of phrenology
conducted extensive measurements of people's skulls and used the data to
produce all sorts of findings, all of which had the appearance of hard
science, but none of which turned out to have any validity. For example,
persons with certain shapes of skulls, dubbed "low-brow," were said
to be intellectually inferior. The link between BATF gun traces and real-world
use of violent crime guns is just as weak as the link between skull shapes and
individual intelligence. BATF traces and the measurement of skulls both
generate a large amount of data, but that data is not scientific evidence upon
which criminal justice policy can be based.
unfortunately, fits the prejudices of its era, since it helped
"prove" that Blacks and Eastern Europeans were intellectually
inferior to people from northwest Europe. Likewise, BATF gun trace studies fit
the prejudices of our own time, since they are designed almost exclusively to
"prove" the need for more gun laws.
phrenological measurements, BATF gun traces do have a valid use: tracing the
history of a particular gun used in a particular crime, up to the point of
retail sale. The trace data should be released from their involuntary
enlistment in the cause of pseudoscientific support for restrictive firearms
Research Director, Independence Institute, Golden Colorado (i2i.org) J.D.,
1985, University of Michigan; B.A. in History 1982, Brown University, Author
of Gun Control and Gun Rights (N.Y.U. Press, forthcoming 2001).
[1] See Sen.
Dianne Feinstein, Yes: The Weapons Are Harder to Get and Police Fatalities Are
Down, Insight, Feb. 26, 1996, at 26. "In 1993 . . . assault weapons . . .
accounted for 8.2% of all ATF gun traces. The ban became effective on Sept.
13, 1994; from that date through November 1995, assault weapons composed only
4.3% of all gun traces." Id. See Jeffrey A. Roth & Christopher S.
Koper, Wash. Urban Inst., Impact Evaluation of the Public Safety and
Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act of 1994 (1997) (In contrast to most
other studies discussed in this article, the Roth study relies only partially
on BATF traces and includes numerous caveats about their limitations).
[3] See Douglas S.
Weil & Rebecca C. Knox, Effects of Limiting Handgun Purchases on
Interstate Transfer of Firearms, 275 JAMA 1759 (1996).
[4] See Garen J.
Wintemute, The Relationship between Firearm Design and Firearm Violence:
Handguns in the 1990's, 275 JAMA 1749 (1996).
[5] See More Gun
Dealers than Gas Stations, (1992).
[7]. It is
tautological that the trace data would reflect trends in trace data. But as
BATF notes, it is not appropriate to assume that trace data reflect trends for
the much larger universe of untraced guns.
[8]. See Keith
Bea, "Assault Weapons": Military-Style Semiautomatic Firearms: Facts
and Issues, Cong. Research Serv., Rep. No. 92-434, at 65 (1992).
[10]. See 18
U.S.C. § 923(g) (1968).
[11]. See
Marianne W. Zawitz, U.S. Dep't. of Justice, Guns Used in Crime (1995)
(estimating that guns were used in 1.3 million violent crimes in 1993).
[12]. See G.L.
Pierce, et al., BATF, The Identification of Patterns in Firearms Trafficking:
Implications for Focused Enforcement Strategies (1996).
Gregore J. Sambor, Tracing Firearms, Police Chief, Mar. 1985, at 73-76.
[14]. See id. at
[15]. See, e.g.,
Md. Code Ann. 27 § 36 H-3 442 (L)(1957), N.Y. Penal Code § 400 (1965); Cal.
Penal Code §§ 12071, 12076-77 (1973); Mass.
Ann. Laws ch. 140, § 129 C (1968).
[16]. As
explained by then Philadelphia Police Commissioner Gregore J. Sambor,
"when a local agency has adequate information and their own means
available, they can sometimes produce their own results quicker and with less
chance of error." Sambor, supra note 13 at 73.
[17]. See Bea,
supra note 8, at 65.
[18]. See David
Freedman et al., Statistics 302-04 (1978). One of the most famous fiascos
which used a non-random sample was the Literary Digest poll for the 1936
presidential election. The Digest contained the largest sample group for any
poll, at 2,400,000 voters. (The Digest sent mail ballots to 10,000,000 people,
using sources such as telephone books and club membership lists.) The poll
predicted that Landon would defeat Roosevelt and win fifty-seven percent of
the vote. However, Landon received only thirty-eight percent of the actual
vote. Contrast the huge, but non-random, Literary Digest sample with the
random sample of 3,000 adults typically used for the final polls taken by
national polling organizations a few days before the Presidential election.
These smaller, random samples almost always come within a few points of the
final election result. (The major exception to this was the 1948 Truman-Dewey
election, which the polls called wrong because of a misapplication of quota
sampling, a topic beyond the scope of this article.)
[19]. Bea, supra
note 8, at 65.
[20]. See D.M.
Kennedy et al., Youth
Gun Violence in Boston: Gun Markets, Serious Youth Offenders, and a Use
Reduction Strategy, 59 Law & Contemp. Probs. 147 (1996).
[21]. See Tom
Diaz, Making a Killing 99 (1999).
[22]. See id. at
Kennedy, supra note 20, tbl. 5 (guns traced from youth offenders in Boston);
Gerald A. Nunziato, BATF National Tracing Center, Briefing to the Homicide
Research Working Group (June 10, 1997) (60 % failure rate); J. Wachtel,
Sources of Crime Guns (Mar. 1996) ( paper presented at the annual meeting of
the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in Las Vegas) (Los Angeles traces,
using BATF data, supplemented by California Department of Justice data).
[24]. Freedman,
supra note 18, at 304.
[25]. See Paul
Blackman, The Uses and Limitations of BATF Tracing Data for Law Enforcement,
Policymaking, and Criminological Research, 10 J. Firearms & Pub. Pol'y.
27, 62 n.19 (1998); Pierce, supra note 12, tbl. 3; Kennedy, supra note 20, at
[27]. See CBS
Morning News: Lawmakers Try to Put a Plug in Illegal Gun Pipeline (CBS
television broadcast, Feb. 09, 1993).
See Memorandum from the BATF on Firearm Statistical Information For Calendar
Year 1992 to Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Division (Oct. 22,
1992). (hereinafter Firearms Statistical Information) (on file with the
author). One reason that traces from Virginia were so high was that BATF was
conducting a special investigation into firearms trafficking from Virginia to
New York. Thus, when a Virginia gun store would call BATF to report a
suspicious sale possibly headed for New York, BATF would advise the store to
go ahead with the sale. Later, when the gun-runners were arrested in New York,
the gun would be traced back to Virginia. See BATF Agent Irvin W. Moran,
Affidavit before U.S. Magistrate David G. Lowe (Aug. 25, 1992); Letter from
John W. Magaw, Director, BATF, to Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (Feb. 23, 1996). In
ordinary circumstances, the guns never would have been sold; if they had been
sold, they would not have been specially selected for tracing.
[29]. See
Firearm Statistical Information. (on file with the author).
[31]. See S.
Brill, Firearms Abuse: A Research and Policy Report (Police Found., 1977) (a
handgun prohibitionist's analysis of a 1976 study of BATF traces).
[33]. Author's
personal interview with retired N.Y. City police officer Stephen D'Andrilli
(Dec. 1992) (expert in firearms licensing).
[34]. The only
non-governmental persons who may own handguns are those whose handguns were
registered before 1976. See D.C.
Code Ann. §§ 6-2312 (1976).
[35]. See James
D. Wright & Peter Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of
Felons and Their Firearms 10-11 (1986).
[36]. A trace to
a particular state could also result from the gun's having been stolen from a
firearms store, or firearms wholesaler in that state, with the gun never
having been sold at retail.
Butterfield, supra note 6, at A14.
[38]. Firearms
Statistical Information, supra note 29.
[39]. Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Concentrated Urban Enforcement: An Analysis of
the Initial Year of Operation Cue in the Cities of Washington D.C., Boston,
Mass., Chicago, Ill. 61 (1977).
[42]. See 18
U. S.C. § 924 (1968).
[43]. Virginia's
law was enacted in 1994, so it is possible that a significant number of guns
traced were sold before the law was enacted. South Carolina's law was enacted
in the 1970s; the state's status in 1996, at least in the Schumer study, as a
leading crime gun exporter, casts some doubt on the law's effectiveness. Late
in the 1996 legislative session, Maryland enacted a one-handgun-per-month law,
which became effective in the fall. The law could not fairly be expected to
have a major impact on 1996 traces.
[44]. Handgun
Control, Inc., The Assault Weapons Ban: Questions & Answers (rev. ed.
1996). For example, one HCI brochure used a line that also appeared in print
advertisements, claiming "assault weapons have quickly become the
'weapons of choice' for drug traffickers, street gangs and paramilitary
extremist groups." . President Clinton repeated this line verbatim in a
speech. See President William J. Clinton, Speech at the Ohio Peace Officers
Training Academy ( Feb. 15, 1994).
[45]. See David
B. Kopel, Rational
Basis Analysis of "Assault Weapon" Prohibition, 20 J. Contemp. L.
381, 411 (1994)(citing Jim Stewart & Andrew Alexander, Assault Guns
Muscling in on Front Lines of Crime, Atlanta J.-Atlanta Const., May 21, 1989,
at A1).
[46]. See Kopel,
supra note 45, at 412.
[48]. See, e.g.,
Hon. Luis V. Gutierrez, Introduction of Legislation to Ban Semiautomatic
Assault Weapons, H.R. 893, Cong. Rec. at E358 (Feb. 17, 1993) (citing the Cox
[49]. See Kopel,
[52]. As noted
above, not all guns seized by the police are seized from criminals or are
connected with a crime. For the sake of argument, I presume that every
"assault weapon" seized by the police was a crime gun.
[53]. See Gary
Kleck, Point Blank 75 (1991).
[54]. See Kopel,
supra note 45, at 413.
[57]. Bea, supra
note 8, at 66.
[59]. See The
Law Enforcement Technology Gun Control Survey, L. Enforcement Tech.
(July/August 1991, at 14-15). Law Enforcement Technology magazine polled its
readership and found that "75% do not favor gun control legislation . . .
with street officers opposing it by as much as 85%." Id. In particular,
78.7% opposed a ban on "assault weapons." Id. About 37% of top
management supported a ban as did about 11% of street officers. See id. Two
thousand police officers participated in the magazine survey. The poll was not
a random sample, but instead was based on voluntary mail responses.
Accordingly, all the caveats from note 18, supra, are applicable.
[60]. See Gun
Control Act of 1968, Pub. L. No. 90-618, 82 Stat. 1313 (1968).
[62]. See Kopel,
supra note 45. The figures were: Akron, 1 to 2%; Baltimore, less than 0.3%;
Bexar County (San Antonio), 0.1%; Connecticut, 2%; Denver 0.8%; Massachusetts,
0.7%; Miami, 3.13%; Minneapolis 0.4%; Oakland, 3.9%; Orange County (Orlando),
Florida, 1.9%; San Diego, 0.3%; Virginia, 3.3%. All data are from police of
the relevant jurisdiction. Full citations can be found in David B. Kopel,
Guns: Who Should Have Them? 179-81 (1995).
[63]. The law
sunsets in 2004. 18 U.S.C. § 922(v) & (w) (1968).
[64]. Letter
from J. Harper Wilson, Chief, Uniform Crime Reporting Section, to Paul H.
Blackman (Sept. 5, 1990).
[66]. "(W)hen
the frequency of traces is considered in proportion to each company's
production, a tiny Atlanta company, S. W. Daniel, Inc., shows a tracing rate
far higher." Erik Larson, The Story of a Gun, The Atlantic Monthly, Jan.
1993, at 48 (Cobray M-l1/9 pistol).
[67]. See Weil,
[68]. See Roth
& Koper, supra note 1; See Handgun Control, Inc., Assault Weapons in
America (visited Aug. 31, 1999) http://www.handguncontrol.org/asw.htm>; Physicians for Social Responsibility, Assault Weapons (visited Oct. 28, 1999) http://www.psr.org/assault.htm>
"In the first eight months of 1995, after the ban took effect, there was
an 18% drop in the number of crimes traced to assault weapons". Id.
[69]. See Jeff
Brazil & Steve Berry, Crackdown on Assault Weapons Has Missed Mark, L.A.
Times, Aug. 24, 1997, at A1.
[70]. See More
Gun Dealers Than Gas Stations, supra note 5.
[71]. See Weil,
[72]. Jeremy
Bentham, Anarchial Fallacies, 2 Works of Jeremy Bentham 501 (1843).