Political Quotes

“today I rise to introduce the Crime Gun Tracing Modernization Act. This bill would bring ATF into the 21st century by allowing the Agency to electronically search for the records of guns used in crimes across the country. It is hard to believe that ATF still must store paper records and search them by hand in order to identify the guns used for criminal activity. These archaic rules prevent the people responsible for enforcing our laws from doing their jobs effectively. The National Tracing Center at ATF is responsible for quickly placing crime gun ownership information into the hands of law enforcement officials so they can solve crimes and save lives. In 2021, National Tracing Center receive over 540,000 trace requests. Unfortunately, the timely completion of these trace requests has been made nearly impossible because ATF cannot search these records electronically. To make matters worse, these millions of records are stored in thousands of boxes that are overflowing the hallways of the National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, WV. The records that agents must search through are so massive, ATF has been told that if it places more boxes inside the facility, the floor may collapse. Every moment after a crime is committed matters dearly to our law enforcement agencies. Prohibiting the efficient search of these records puts our communities at risk. I thank my former colleague Senator Leahy for championing this bill last Congress.…”