“What we really need is the transparency to see gun dealer inspection reports as they’re issued, to see how the system is working in real time,” Scharff said. Joshua Scharff, senior counsel and director of programs at Brady, the violence prevention group, told The Trace that he, too, was optimistic about the new figures, but he emphasized that the public needs more transparency to assess whether ATF inspectors are holding lawbreaking dealers sufficiently accountable. When asked whether the ATF had taken a stricter stance toward dealers in 2022, agency spokesperson Erik Longnecker told The Trace he could not speculate without specific case details. The new inspections data does not conclusively show whether either of these developments altered the way the ATF investigates gun dealers, but it suggests that inspectors were more aggressive than in years past.
Others revoked as many as 4 percent of the licenses they inspected. Regional breakdowns in the newly released inspections data show that some ATF field divisions revoked no licenses, despite conducting more than a hundred inspections. It’s a technique the agency has implemented in the past, and it’s unclear precisely how, or if, such data is currently being used. Then, in July of this year, the Senate confirmed Steven Dettelbach to lead the ATF - the agency’s first confirmed director in seven years.Īlready, Dettelbach has announced that he plans to sharpen the agency’s gun dealer inspection protocols, using gun crime data to identify dealers whose guns most frequently turn up in crimes. In June of 2021, the Biden administration took steps to curb this leniency, issuing a guidance that ordered inspectors to implement a zero tolerance policy and revoke the licenses of dealers who willfully sell to prohibited purchasers or sell guns without conducting background checks, among other violations.
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In other cases, after inspectors recommended a license for revocation, superiors downgraded the penalty - in many instances without justification. An investigation by The Trace and USA TODAY published last year involved a review of documents from more than 2,000 gun store inspections over two years, and revealed that inspectors frequently let repeat offenders off the hook for serious violations of federal law that put guns in the hands of domestic abusers, drug traffickers, and violent felons.
In a sweeping investigation, The Trace and USA TODAY found the federal agency charged with policing the gun industry let dealers get away with falsifying records and selling firearms without background checks.īut reporting shows that the ATF’s inspections program has long been lenient and conciliatory toward gun dealers.
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