SCHUMER "STUDY" FLAWED, AS EXPECTED

"...The [B]ATF tracing system is ... not designed to collect statistics .. [B]ATF does not always know if a firearm being traced has been used in a crime ... [A trace can occur] for any reason. No crime need be involved..."

-- Congressional Research Service (CRS)

Schumer

      U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), is once again deliberately hijacking the BATF's firearm tracing information to promote his anti-gun agenda. On December 20, he issued a press release touting a "study" that indicates that many firearms used in crimes are originally bought from a small number of "high crime gun stores," then quickly resold. His release, of course, also outlined

"...his staff's analysis... perpetuates his deceptive misuse of BATF trace data..."

his "solutions" to this alleged "problem," which include mandating NICS checks to be conducted by a federal firearms license (FFL) holder on all private transfers of handguns and "assault weapons," and registration of these transfers.

      His conclusions are based on his staff's analysis of traces of firearms by BATF, which merely perpetuates his deceptive misuse of BATF trace data contrary to the repeated cautioning of both BATF and the Congressional Research Service (CRS). According to the CRS, "The [B]ATF tracing system is an operational system designed to help law enforcement agencies identify the ownership path of individual firearms. It was not designed to collect statistics .. [B]ATF does not always know if a firearm being traced has been used in a crime ... [A trace can occur] for any reason. No crime need be involved." In other words, not all guns used in crime are traced, and not all guns traced were necessarily used by criminals, so any broad conclusions drawn from tracing data are fundamentally flawed.

      Ironically, Schumer's "study" indicates that criminals, for the most part, don't buy guns in gun stores, and it also starkly highlights the Clinton-Gore Administration's abominable enforcement record. For example, Schumer notes that the background check system has resulted in over 412,000 denials of prohibited

"...[Schumer] fails to note that... an attempted illegal purchase by a violent criminal is a crime carrying a 10-year federal prison sentence..."

purchasers, but he fails to note that such an attempted illegal purchase by a violent criminal is a crime carrying a 10-year federal prison sentence. The omission of this salient detail is obviously due to the Clinton-Gore Administration's failure to prosecute more than a handful of these criminals for this serious crime. Nobody should be surprised that a hardened criminal who is denied under NICS, but not apprehended, doesn't give up trying to get a gun.

      BATF has plenty of information about potentially illegal gun sales and "straw purchases," and it is fully empowered to investigate such cases and prosecute anytime existing federal gun laws have been broken. Unfortunately, this simply isn't happening. BATF referrals of gun law violations for prosecution to federal, state, and local attorneys have declined almost 54% during this Administration (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University).

      Schumer's proposals would create a new, massive, and costly federal bureaucracy to keep computer database of law-abiding gun owners, something specifically prohibited by federal law for more than a decade. Such a scheme flies in the face of both the Second Amendment as well as our right to privacy, and criminals are hardly likely to start running background checks on each other just because Senator Schumer says they must.

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