The Trump Administration Is Making It Harder to Solve Gun Crimes
When law enforcement officials recover a gun from a crime scene, that gun becomes critical evidence for solving the crime and preventing future violence. Investigators can analyze it to determine where it was sold, who it was purchased by, and whether it was used in other crimes—all pieces of information that can result in a breakthrough in an investigation.
Law enforcement have access to this information because of two key federal programs: the National Tracing Center’s eTrace program and the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), both of which are operated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). For these to be as effective as possible, the federal government must support the ATF, ensuring that it has the funding and staffing it needs to respond to state law enforcement’s needs.
Unfortunately, despite Trump’s tough talk on stopping crime, his administration has done the opposite: Trump has gutted the ATF and made crime solving tools less accessible to law enforcement.
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Earlier this year, the Trump administration revoked a core ATF policy that prevents gun dealers from selling guns to criminals. At the same time, Trump unveiled plans to eliminate nearly 1,500 positions from the agency and has proposed a $400 million cut to the ATF’s budget.
Now, CNN is reporting that a majority of ATF special agents have been redeployed to perform immigration enforcement duties outside of their scope. These decisions unquestionably make our communities less safe. An understaffed and underfunded ATF is simply unable to address gun violence and firearm trafficking in our country urgently and effectively. Without robust support for the agency, more illegal gun sales will go by undetected until the gun turns up at a crime scene.
Even when guns turn up at a crime scene, without sufficient funding for the ATF to operate the crime gun intelligence tools described above at full capacity, obtaining key pieces of evidence from crime guns will take significantly longer—if it happens at all.
This means that because of the Trump administration, it will be slower for state and local law enforcement to get critical information about gun crimes, and as a result they will have a harder time identifying gun traffickers, bad apple gun dealers, and—most importantly—those who have committed homicides, assaults, and other gun crimes. More crimes will go unsolved, clearance rates will fall, and perpetrators will go unpunished.
The two federal programs mentioned above, eTrace program and NIBIN, are essential to stopping crime. Using eTrace, the ATF can trace a firearm’s serial number to identify where it was first sold at retail, and who it was sold to—crucial information not only for identifying suspects to a particular crime, but also for spotting broader patterns of illegal gun sales and trafficking. NIBIN further allows law enforcement to automatically compare their ballistic evidence with other evidence from across the country to identify when the same gun was used at multiple crime scenes.
For decades, the ATF has made these crime gun intelligence tools available to state and local law enforcement agencies across the country. Research has repeatedly shown that adopting the regular use of these programs increases the rate at which gun crimes are solved. As a result, these tools have been increasingly popular, with more and more agencies choosing to make use of them each year.
Many states have shown leadership in addressing gun violence by enacting standard practices for law enforcement to enroll in and use crime gun intelligence tools. Just this year, lawmakers in Minnesota enacted legislation that will ensure all law enforcement in the state are enrolled in eTrace, and that they share the information they receive from the program with their partner agencies in the state. Lawmakers in Illinois, Connecticut, and Rhode Island similarly enacted legislation this year to expand their states’ use of crime gun intelligence tools. In all, there are currently 14 states that ensure that crime guns recovered by law enforcement are traced through the ATF.
But the loss of funding, staff, and other resources at the ATF—even as the use of its crime intelligence programs rises—only gets in the way of states being able to use these tools. Ordinarily, ATF attempts to fulfill states’ eTrace requests within one week, or within just 48 hours for urgent requests like those related to homicides or mass shootings. But as the agency is required to handle more requests with fewer resources, that timeline becomes harder to meet. A non-urgent request now takes nearly two weeks to process, and while the agency is still able to quickly handle most urgent requests, the Trump administration’s cuts will make that all but impossible.
Going forward, there are two things that must be done. First, state lawmakers should continue to step up and show leadership on this issue. Ensuring the full use of crime gun intelligence tools supports state and local law enforcement, reduces gun violence and gun trafficking, and sends a strong message to the Trump administration that these are valuable and popular resources that must receive continued support at the federal level.
Second, the administration must reverse course with its dangerous dismantling of the ATF and capitulation to gun industry CEOs. The Trump administration’s actions have been a gift to firearm traffickers and unscrupulous gun dealers, all while leaving state and local law enforcement with less support by the day. If Trump means what he says about reducing crime, then he will ensure the ATF can continue in its role of helping to solve gun crimes across the country.
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