Schumer, Joined by Mayor Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Kelly and Others to Unveil New Bill to Let Cities Use Federal Data to Trace Crime Guns

SCHUMER, JOINED BY MAYOR BLOOMBERG, POLICE COMMISSIONER KELLY AND OTHERS TO UNVEIL NEW BILL TO LET CITIES USE FEDERAL DATA TO TRACE CRIME GUNS ON THEIR STREETS

Mayor's Gun Crime Team Lends Full Support to Senator One Day After New York City Launch of Landmark Interstate Federal Lawsuit Against Rogue Gun Dealers

Schumer Legislation Would Give Feds Tough New Tools to Shut Down Gun Dealers Who Supply Criminals

92 % of the Illegal Handguns Recovered in New York City from 1988-2003 Were From Out of State

Today U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer, joined by New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, announced his bill to allow localities to use federal data to trace guns used in crimes on their streets. Schumer's bill gives law enforcement authorities new tools that enable them to better investigate, prosecute, and shut down the dealers that supply guns for illegal activity and allows local law enforcement to access federal gun tracing data and renew the ability of police agencies to share details with one another, allowing them to find and shut down rogue gun traffickers. The bill includes language to increase gun trafficking penalties, end restrictions on the amount of times per year the ATF can inspect gun dealers, allows gun dealers to be prosecuted under RICO - Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act - the same way that a perpetrator of organized crime is prosecuted, and require reporting of stolen guns from every state, a critical step in tracing guns.

"We shouldn't be tying the hands of law enforcement when they try to stop guns from making their way to our city streets. We should be giving them every available tool to fight crime," said Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY). "Ninety-two percent of the guns used in crimes in New York City come from out of state. Last November, one of those guns was used to kill New York Police Officer Dillon Stewart. We need to find out where illegal guns are coming from before they are used in crimes."

"Illegal guns plague the streets of every big city in America and we can't tell our law enforcement agencies to fight them with one hand tied behind their backs," said Mayor Bloomberg. "This bill would reverse the outrageous attempts to deny law enforcement agencies critical gun trace information that would help save the lives of innocent people and police officers in New York City and across the nation - and I want to applaud Senator Schumer for his leadership in introducing it."

Gun tracing is the critical tool in shutting down gun traffickers. In addition to being able retrace the history of a gun that is connected to a crime after it is committed, it helps to identify patterns of illegal gun trafficking and shut down rogue gun traffickers who are responsible for running guns illegally from state to state. Through tracing, law enforcement can find trends of multiple sales of firearms to buyers and look for patterns of theft from licensed gun dealers. Multiple traces to the same dealer or buyer can help police find out exactly who is responsible for mass quantities of guns crossing state lines. By looking at the full picture of traces and the patterns that emerge, law enforcement is able to find opportunities to stop gun running on the supply side of the gun market, before they make their way onto our city streets.

By tracing guns law enforcement is able to identify buyers, sellers, and possessors of guns and is able to identify a "straw purchaser" - someone who can legally buy a firearm and is hired by someone who either is prohibited by law from doing so or does not want to be traced. Straw purchasers are usually linked to gun trafficking and identifying them and stopping them brings down gun trafficking enormously. Both dealers and purchasers of large quantities of guns used in crimes can be tracked over time and stopped through tracing databases.

Until 2003, the information in the ATF's National Tracing Center was available to the public and to law enforcement. In 2003 however, Congressman Todd Tiahrt from Kansas slipped a stealth amendment into an appropriations bill to limit access to the tracing information. As a result of this amendment which has been included in House appropriations bills every year since 2003, the ATF is prohibited from releasing information about where guns come from, tying the hands of law enforcement.

In an effort to combat the threat of illegal guns on the streets, today Schumer unveiled his bill to give local law enforcement access to tracing information and give them to tools to prosecute and shut down gun traffickers.

Schumer's Bill, the Anti-Gun Trafficking Penalties Enhancement Act (S. 2629) will:

• Repeal the "Tiahrt Amendment," which prohibits the ATF from releasing information from its Firearms Trace System database, even to law enforcement in many cases. The bill requires ATF to provide information from the firearms trace database when it is requested by a state or local government or law enforcement agency.

• Requires law enforcement agencies to report stolen guns and guns used in crime to the ATF for its database. Unlike New York, very few states require that stolen guns are immediately reported to the ATF database - making it easy to move stolen guns from state to state, because they are not tracked. The bill would make reporting mandatory for every state.

• Give ATF discretion to inspect the inventories of gun dealers when it is necessary. ATF is currently limited to one inspection of a dealer per year and cannot, by law, go back to a dealer if they have reason to be suspicious. This restriction permits some gun dealers, upon inspection to "lose" information and conceal the truth knowing that they wont have to worry about another inspection for at least a year.

• Increases the maximum penalty for gun trafficking to 20 years. Currently the maximum penalty is 10 years.

• Makes gun trafficking a predicate offense for a RICO violation, so that law enforcement can use the same tools to fight gun traffickers that it currently has to fight organized crime.

"The bottom line is, for too long law enforcement has been without the necessary tools to find and prosecute rogue gun dealers," Schumer said. "This bill allows law enforcement to stop crime guns before they are used and shut down the bad apple gun dealers that sell them."

According to the ATF, there were 5,766 guns submitted to the ATF for tracing in the calendar year 2004 the year for which the most recent data is available. This includes both long and hand guns, and all guns seized by combined state and local law enforcement agencies. According to New York City sources, 92% of the illegal handguns recovered in New York City from 1988-2003 were from out of state sources. The top five states for origination of illegal handguns in New York City were Virginia, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina. Shootings and gun arrests have declined in New York City over the last three years, but there were still almost 1400 shootings in New York City in 2004 and 3,826 gun arrests. Between 2002-2004, there have been over 4500 shootings and almost 12,000 gun arrests.

Senator Schumer has led the charge in Congress to expose the "Crime Gun Highway" that sends illegal guns to cities like New York from other states. Senator Schumer wrote the original 1994 assault weapons ban which banned the manufacture of 19 types of common military style assault weapons as well as other weapons with characteristics common to military-style assault weapons; protected some 670 hunting and other recreational rifles for use by law-abiding citizens; and gave police officers and other law enforcement officials the right to use and obtain newly manufactured semi-automatic assault weapons. The law had helped protect law enforcement from being outgunned by perpetrators. The 1994 Crime Bill also added 100,000 police officers to our city streets and created the "Three Strikes You're Out" mandatory sentencing rule.

Senator Schumer worked very closely with the Clinton administration to push ATF to not only trace more crime guns, but also to start connecting the dots to identify patterns among bad gun dealers who allow the majority of crime guns out on to the streets. Schumer issued a report that used 1998 trace data to identify 137 dealers nationwide that had sold more than 50 guns traced to crime. The 13 worst dealers were the source of 13,000 traced crime guns that year. He also successfully shepherded passage of the Brady Hand Gun Violence Prevention Act, despite intense lobbying from opponents.

http://schumer.senate.gov/SchumerWebsite/pressroom/press_releases/2006/PR156.NYC%20Guns.051606.html