TRAC Data Points To Lack Of Enforcement
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
The past couple weeks I have been decrying the lack of enforcement of federal gun laws under the current administration.
Just this week, a new batch of statistics were compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
To satisfy the skeptics, TRAC is a nonpartisan data-gathering, research and data distribution organization associated with Syracuse University.
I probably wouldn't consider Syracuse University a hotbed of right-wing thought.
I think what the statistics they have compiled show is significant in light of the current administration's propensity to propose more and more federal gun laws.
According to TRAC, referrals for federal prosecutions by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have sharply declined during the Clinton Administration.
The latest data available shows that from a peak in fiscal year 1992, the total of all ATF matters sent to federal prosecutors has declined by 44 percent, dropping from 9,885 in 1992 to 5,510 in 1998.
Frankly, I think the 1992 figure seems a little low to begin with.
Simultaneously, while ATF weapon prosecutions also were well below their 1992 peak, there has been a recent upturn in this category of cases - a 25 percent increase from 1997 to 1998.
TRAC points out - and this is what I've been saying all along - that this broad decline in the enforcement of existing laws comes precisely at a time when the Clinton administration has been calling for new laws and programs to deal with gun violence.
It is a classic case of a politician saying one thing and doing quite another.
While President Clinton decries gun violence, demands more laws and takes a get-tough position on gun violence, his administration fails to take simple enforcement steps that could significantly alter the course of gun crime in America.
It makes one wonder - truly - about the motivation of this administration.
Is it to combat gun violence? Or is it to circumvent the Second Amendment and disarm law-abiding citizens?
Consider the following.
The ATF always has been the lead agency used by the government to control use of federal firearms. But recently it is becoming less prominent.
In 1992, the ATF recommended 88 percent of firearms prosecutions. The other 12 percent were handled by other agencies.
By 1998, the share handled by other agencies doubled to 24 percent.
According to the Office of Personnel Management, the number of ATF criminal investigations went from 2,072 in 1992 to 1,779 in 1998, a 14 percent reduction.
But the pace of the decline in investigations (14 percent) is much less than the decline in cases sent to prosecutors (44 percent).
Why?
ATF administrators say that it's because of more focused prosecutions.
But one would reasonably assume that more focused prosecutions would result in longer sentences.
That has not been the case. During the last seven years, the peak ATF sentence was a median of 57 months. That came in 1996. In 1997 the median dropped to 48 months. In 1998 it dropped again to 46 months.
The ATF also likes to note that a drop in the general crime rate accounts for some of the downward trends. But weapons violations have not followed the downward trend in the general crime rate. And weapons violations are the main purview of the ATF.
Another interesting batch of statistics TRAC compiled shows that there were at least six times more ATF referrals in rural districts like Oklahoma (Tulsa), Tennessee (Knoxville) and North Carolina (Asheville) than in major urban centers in California (San Francisco, Los Angeles) Illinois (Chicago) and New Jersey (Newark.)
The data tend to suggest that the ATF leans toward enforcing weapons laws most ardently in areas that need it the least.
And amid all the hoopla about gun violence, the ATF has actually undergone staffing cuts in recent years.
While the data are far from conclusive and there is no simple solution to the problem of gun violence in America, one thing seems clear.
The Clinton administration, while purporting to be deeply concerned about the problem of gun violence, has sorely underutilized one of the most basic tools to combat it - its own Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Anytime anyone in Congress votes against a new batch of gun laws, President Clinton calls it a missed chance to save lives.
I would like to ask President Clinton one question.
How many lives would have been saved in the past seven years if his administration had made it a priority to prosecute criminals who commit federal weapons violations? [[In-content Ad]]
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The past couple weeks I have been decrying the lack of enforcement of federal gun laws under the current administration.
Just this week, a new batch of statistics were compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
To satisfy the skeptics, TRAC is a nonpartisan data-gathering, research and data distribution organization associated with Syracuse University.
I probably wouldn't consider Syracuse University a hotbed of right-wing thought.
I think what the statistics they have compiled show is significant in light of the current administration's propensity to propose more and more federal gun laws.
According to TRAC, referrals for federal prosecutions by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have sharply declined during the Clinton Administration.
The latest data available shows that from a peak in fiscal year 1992, the total of all ATF matters sent to federal prosecutors has declined by 44 percent, dropping from 9,885 in 1992 to 5,510 in 1998.
Frankly, I think the 1992 figure seems a little low to begin with.
Simultaneously, while ATF weapon prosecutions also were well below their 1992 peak, there has been a recent upturn in this category of cases - a 25 percent increase from 1997 to 1998.
TRAC points out - and this is what I've been saying all along - that this broad decline in the enforcement of existing laws comes precisely at a time when the Clinton administration has been calling for new laws and programs to deal with gun violence.
It is a classic case of a politician saying one thing and doing quite another.
While President Clinton decries gun violence, demands more laws and takes a get-tough position on gun violence, his administration fails to take simple enforcement steps that could significantly alter the course of gun crime in America.
It makes one wonder - truly - about the motivation of this administration.
Is it to combat gun violence? Or is it to circumvent the Second Amendment and disarm law-abiding citizens?
Consider the following.
The ATF always has been the lead agency used by the government to control use of federal firearms. But recently it is becoming less prominent.
In 1992, the ATF recommended 88 percent of firearms prosecutions. The other 12 percent were handled by other agencies.
By 1998, the share handled by other agencies doubled to 24 percent.
According to the Office of Personnel Management, the number of ATF criminal investigations went from 2,072 in 1992 to 1,779 in 1998, a 14 percent reduction.
But the pace of the decline in investigations (14 percent) is much less than the decline in cases sent to prosecutors (44 percent).
Why?
ATF administrators say that it's because of more focused prosecutions.
But one would reasonably assume that more focused prosecutions would result in longer sentences.
That has not been the case. During the last seven years, the peak ATF sentence was a median of 57 months. That came in 1996. In 1997 the median dropped to 48 months. In 1998 it dropped again to 46 months.
The ATF also likes to note that a drop in the general crime rate accounts for some of the downward trends. But weapons violations have not followed the downward trend in the general crime rate. And weapons violations are the main purview of the ATF.
Another interesting batch of statistics TRAC compiled shows that there were at least six times more ATF referrals in rural districts like Oklahoma (Tulsa), Tennessee (Knoxville) and North Carolina (Asheville) than in major urban centers in California (San Francisco, Los Angeles) Illinois (Chicago) and New Jersey (Newark.)
The data tend to suggest that the ATF leans toward enforcing weapons laws most ardently in areas that need it the least.
And amid all the hoopla about gun violence, the ATF has actually undergone staffing cuts in recent years.
While the data are far from conclusive and there is no simple solution to the problem of gun violence in America, one thing seems clear.
The Clinton administration, while purporting to be deeply concerned about the problem of gun violence, has sorely underutilized one of the most basic tools to combat it - its own Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Anytime anyone in Congress votes against a new batch of gun laws, President Clinton calls it a missed chance to save lives.
I would like to ask President Clinton one question.
How many lives would have been saved in the past seven years if his administration had made it a priority to prosecute criminals who commit federal weapons violations? [[In-content Ad]]