Without A Trace: How the Gun Lobby and the Government Suppress the Truth About Guns and Crime

By Elizabeth S. Haile

As ATF developed its database of more than two million crime guns, it released to law enforcement agencies, scholars, the press, local and state governments, and the public, numerous reports analyzing the patterns of crime gun sales, as well as portions of the trace database itself. Reports on crime gun trace data revolutionized our understanding of the illegal gun market and how it is supplied – establishing that strong gun laws have a profound impact on access to guns by criminals in the illegal market, and identifying the gun manufacturers, distributors, and dealers most responsible for supplying crime guns. Crime gun trace data has provided powerful evidence of the gun industry’s complicity in fueling the illegal market, showing that thousands of guns move quickly from a relatively small number of licensed gun dealers into the illegal market. Indeed, almost 60% of the crime guns traced in a given year were sold by only 1% of the licensed firearms dealers, while about 85% of gun dealers had no traces at all. The gun industry knows who the high-trace dealers are, but has refused to stop selling them guns or force them to reform. As a result, felons and other prohibited purchasers have been supplied the tools of violence – aided and abetted by careless or corrupt dealers. Our nation suffers from the violent gun crime that ensues. The gun industry has argued that ATF trace data is meaningless or insignificant. For example, gun industry spokespeople continuously claim that the concentration of crime guns originating from a relatively few dealers may indicate only that they sell a lot of guns. ATF’s own investigations have disproved this argument, however, as have academic studies.

Washington, DC: Brady Center for Prevent Gun Violence, 2006. 56p.