Mike Levin: “last week the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) released a new report about the illegal firearms market. The…”

“last week the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) released a new report about the illegal firearms market. The ATF's report documents 1,530 criminal investigations involving firearms traffickers for the time period between July 1996 and December 1998. These trafficking investigations led to the recovery of more than 84,000 illegal firearms and the prosecution of more than 1,700 defendants. The ATF report provides significant insight in to the gun trafficking trade. The investigation reveals that too many loopholes in our national framework for firearms distribution permits traffickers to divert legal guns to the illegal marketplace. The vulnerabilities in our law, identified by the ATF, are a result of corrupt federal firearms licensees, who were associated with only 10 percent of the investigations in the report but accounted for nearly half of the firearms involved, a staggering 40,000 guns; gun shows, which supplied channels for 26,000 guns, the second highest number of illegally trafficked firearms in the investigation; straw purchasers, who bought and transferred firearms to unlicensed sellers or prohibited users; unlicensed sellers, who were not required to conduct Brady background checks or maintain records of their sales; and firearms theft. Mr. President, we can no longer afford to ignore the deficiencies in our federal firearm laws. Gun trafficking gives criminal users and young people access to tens of thousands of illegal guns.”