Oops! Gun Dealers "Lost" More than 62,000 Firearms Since 2008 - Many Likely Sold "Off the Books"

[jpak]

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/01/25-5

Licensed gun dealers nationwide “lost” an average of at least 56 firearms every day over the last three years, according to a Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence analysis of new data released last week by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) at a gun industry trade show. From 2008 to 2010, at least 62,134 firearms left gun dealers’ inventory without a record of being legally sold.

Firearms that leave gun shops without records of sale are frequently trafficked by gun traffickers and prized by criminals because the guns have no record of sale and are virtually untraceable. Corrupt gun dealers also attempt to disguise illegal off-the-book sales by claiming that the firearms were lost or stolen.

“It’s the height of irresponsibility for gun dealers to allow tens of thousands of firearms to leave their shops without background checks or a record of sale. Congress is also to blame for its refusal to fully fund and staff the ATF and to strengthen our nation’s weak guns,” said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “Every gun that leaves a gun shop without a background check is one that fuels the illegal gun market and endangers our communities.”

The 62,134 “missing” guns are likely a vast undercount of the total number of guns that disappeared from gun shops in the last three years. The missing guns are noted at ATF compliance inspections of licensed gun dealers, but ATF has conducted compliance inspections each year at only about one-fifth of the nation’s gun shops. Gun dealers inspected by ATF could not account for 22,770 guns in 2008, 18,323 guns in 2009, and 21,041 in 2010.

<more>

We need more BATF agents to deal with this.

yup

[Ian David]

1. Yay! All those guns are protecting us from crimes! n/t

[mediator]

2. I'm not really interested in what the Republican Brady Bunch has to say

about anything.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. Read for content and consider the source

[jpak]

4. Yeah - IT CAN'T BE TRUE!!!1111

:rofl:

[Hoyt]

5. I guess on such topics, one can only "trust" NRA and those who can't leave the house without a gun.

[texshelters]

6. Now the facist commie 'Merka hatin'

communists that want to stop criminals from owning guns will use this information to try to enact harsh penalties on people that want to practice their free market rights and sell guns to whoever you want whether they be criminals or not and spending 5 minutes on a background check or making someone fill out a form is anti-capitalist communism and if you want to keep criminals from having guns you are coming after me and shut up you libtards AHHHHHHHHH!

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[X_Digger]

7. 21,041 of 14,000,000? One-tenth of one percent..

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/total-nics-background-checks

And that doesn't even count the guns sold to those who hold NICS exempt permits, like a Texas CHL.

[jpak]

8. 21,041 armed criminals

yup

[X_Digger]

9. How so?

The inventory doesn't match the count.

Could be the gun was never in inventory.
Could be that the check was done, and the person passed the NICS check, but the paperwork was lost.
Could be that the gun was stolen. The thief could be a criminal, poor, or out for a thrill.
Could be that the gun dealer was complicit in an under the table sale.

There is no basis in fact for your contention.

[jpak]

10. Illegal sales to criminals and gun runners - those "dealers" should lose their licenses

yup

[X_Digger]

12. Red Herring.

What facts back up your claim that there are 21,041 criminals with guns as a result of this discrepancy.

How do you know what percentage were a legitimate case of lost paperwork? Or inventory slip-ups?

You can't. Therefore, your statement is demonstrably false.

[jpak]

20. Lost paperwork -meh - talk about yer red herrings. Sloppy paperwork = lose yer firearms license

yup

[X_Digger]

23. So nothing to back up your statement, then? n/t

[Atypical Liberal]

28. And that is exactly what happens.

If the BATFE comes calling on an FFL and demands their record books, you have to provide them, providing an accounting for all firearms that pass through your hands.

If your record keeping is shoddy, then you can loose your FFL.

[HankyDubs]

11. 1/5th

"The 62,134 “missing” guns are likely a vast undercount of the total number of guns that disappeared from gun shops in the last three years. The missing guns are noted at ATF compliance inspections of licensed gun dealers, but ATF has conducted compliance inspections each year at only about one-fifth of the nation’s gun shops. Gun dealers inspected by ATF could not account for 22,770 guns in 2008, 18,323 guns in 2009, and 21,041 in 2010.

Weak federal gun laws allow gun dealers to operate without security or inventory controls. In 2001, ATF proposed that gun dealers be required to take one physical inventory of their firearms each year to ensure that all firearms were accounted for in their shops. At the behest of the gun lobby, Congress in 2004 approved an appropriations provision proposed by then-Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS), known as the “Tiahrt Amendment,” blocking ATF from requiring that gun dealers track their inventory - and that prohibition remains the law today.

The Tiahrt Amendment also contains a secrecy provision that blocks public and media requests for data about guns missing from gun shops, including which gun dealers are the source of the most “lost” guns. The Brady Center obtained the data for 2008 to 2010 from an ATF report presented to the gun industry last week. Data have previously shown that a small number of gun dealers are responsible for most missing guns. In 2005, ATF found that 12,274 firearms disappeared from gun shops without background checks or records of sale in fiscal year 2005, and 11,640 of those guns were from just 97 gun shops.

President Obama promised during his 2008 campaign to “repeal the Tiahrt Amendment,” but has instead kept the prohibition on ATF requiring gun dealer inventory audits and the gun dealer data secrecy provision in his budget proposals.

Criminals frequently obtain firearms from gun dealers who have large numbers of guns “disappear” from their inventory. The Brady Center report “Death Valley: Profile of a Rogue Gun Dealer" highlights the record of Sandy Abrams, a three-term NRA board member, and owner of Valley Gun shop in Baltimore, Maryland, who was cited for more than 900 violations of federal gun laws. Abrams failed to account for firearms in his gun shop, with 422 guns missing in a 2003 inspection, amounting to more than one-quarter of his store’s inventory. Abrams’ shop had over 483 firearms traced to crimes including 41 assaults and 11 homicides. Despite Abrams’ record of violations, weak gun laws allowed Abrams to stay in business for nearly a decade before ATF could shut him down. Even after his license was revoked, Abrams continued selling guns."

[X_Digger]

13. Was there a point in that paste-regurgitation?

And furthermore, how does it address the question I asked?

[HankyDubs]

14. which question?

I'm presuming you mean this one: "What facts back up your claim that there are 21,041 criminals with guns as a result of this discrepancy?"

Well since there are about 20k gun "losses" each of the three years where statistics are cited, and only 1/5 of dealers have been inspected, jpac's assertion that roughly 20k guns are now in the hands of criminals as a result is probably a ridiculously LOW estimate.

I bolded the other portion that I thought was relevant. A known facilitator of illegal sales (and 3-term NRA board member) is still selling guns.

[X_Digger]

15. You're making the same assumption he is - without fact.

What backs up your claim that all 21,041 guns are in the hands of criminals?

ie, what percentage are inventory discrepancies, or legitimate sales whose 4473 was just lost..

[HankyDubs]

17. ridiculously low

"What backs up your claim that all 21,041 guns are in the hands of criminals?"

I'd say that over these three years, if you account for 50% of the total number of 61,000 as "discrepancies" and the other 50% as off the book illegal gun deals, that would mean possibly about 30,000 unauthorized gun owners. Each one of these person is a violator of the law, not sure whether they are misdemeanors or felonies. Maybe they were minors, maybe they were felons before the purchase. That sometimes brings added time.

But this isn't even the real point...I'm actually not that interested in these people, some of them might well actually be decent law abiding people, and the others are probably unstable wackjobs not really even completely responsible for the bloodbath that ensues.

You have to consider the people who are "losing" guns in large numbers. Each one of these persons is also a criminal, I'd say guilty of a much more serious crime, though again I'm not sure what the law proscribes here. Now if you consider that these serious criminals own large numbers of firearms, and you'd have to consider each one of these guns to be "in the hands of a criminal," that would mean that the numbers of "guns in the hands of criminals" is potentially in the millions.

Thats a lot of guns in the hands of criminals, and makes jpac look like quite foolish when he comes in here talking about a lousy 21,000 GUNS IN THE HANDS OF CRIMINALS. I would wager that there are at least 10 times that many guns in the hands of criminals in the last three years.

[X_Digger]

18. Why 50% / 50% ?

What backs up your choice of those percentages? Intuition? Wishful thinking?

[HankyDubs]

19. as I said, that's not even the point

the point isn't the percentage that are illegal sales, but the total number of guns owned by people who ARE LIKELY TO MAKE ILLEGAL SALES as evidenced by the fact that they JUST FUCKING MADE ONE in the last three years. Each and every one of those guns is NOT "in the hands" of a law-abiding gun owner, but "in the hands" of a criminal.

[X_Digger]

22. What backs that up?

Again I ask, how do you know what the percentages are? Could be 99% lost paperwork and 1% inventory screw-up.

What evidence do you offer?

[jpak]

21. No way! Sloppy paperwork guns never find there way into the hands of criminals!!!1111

They're just and "honest" mistake - 20,000 times a year.- and the bad old BATF is so MEAN to them.

:puke:

[X_Digger]

24. divided by 70,000 dealers.. less than one per year on average. n/t

[DissedByBush]

30. 21,041 paperwork mistakes more likely

The ATF was trying to take down a gun shop over some "missing" weapons a while back.

The shop countered that they did their paperwork and these were mistakes that amounted to less than 1% of sales.

The judge asked the ATF witness if their own paperwork had a less than 1% error rate.

The ATF had to admit it didn't.

The case was dismissed

With 14,000,000 sales, 21,041 "missing" weapons is a 0.15% error rate.

Most likely the weapons were legally sold, but the paperwork is messed up.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

25. What, did you need something?

[X_Digger]

26. :) n/t

[beevul]

16. The brady bunch? Now theres a credible bunch...

The brady bunch? Now theres a credible bunch...Not.


This is a group that has deliberately included adults in thier "statistics" to inflate them. No organization that has a legitimate intent to reduce gun violence would do such a thing.


This is a group that claims to want to prevent gun violence, yet gives grades on a per state basis based on how much they restrict guns rather than how high or low the level of gun crime/gun violence is in that state. Again, no organization that has a legitimate intent to reduce gun violence would do such a thing.


This is a group that claimed that civilian owned 50 caliber rifles which are esentially never used in crime could shoot down aircraft, which is a huge lie, and used that false rationale for stamping thier feet and screaming ban at the tops of thier lungs.

Again, no organization that has a legitimate intent to reduce gun violence would do such a thing.


This is a group that opposes concealed carry, even though police as a group are convicted of a larger number of crimes than CCW holders.

Once again, no organization that has a legitimate intent to reduce gun violence would do such a thing.


This is a group that claimed that "assault weapons" were the choice of criminals, in spite of the fact that ALL rifles - which 99 percent of so called "assault weapons" are - are used in less than 3 percent of all firearm homicides, and used that false rationale for stamping thier feet and screaming ban at the tops of thier lungs.

Once again, no organization that has a legitimate intent to reduce gun violence would do such a thing.




They may as well be "the brady campain to reduce guns", because 90 plus percent of the things they stump for are aimed squarely at doing just that.


And did I mention that they thought a republican would be a good fit as president of thier org?


I have said it many times in this post:

No organization that has a legitimate intent to reduce gun violence would go after legally owned guns, unless thats what they want gone. They aren't interested in reducing gun violence unless its through restrictive gun laws aimed at people who by and large aren't a problem in the first place.

Do they look at root causes of gun violence? No. They go after guns.

Do they bother investigating how much the "war on some drugs" effects gun violence? Of course not. Like good little republicans they never bring that up, and go after guns instead.

As far as they're concerned, its the guns, and that should put them at odds with anyone who values his or her rights where firearms ownership is concerned.

:rofl:

Yup

Yup

Yup

[GreenStormCloud]

27. Let's look at the numbers more closely.

According to the VPC there are 50630 guns stores in America as of 2007. So 62,134 amounts to a little over one gun per shop in four years. I can easily see how a gun store could screw up the records on one gun in four years. This is just another case of the anti-gun folks trying to rig the count to sound like the sky is falling.

[Atypical Liberal]

29. Only about 1 gun lost per dealer over 4 years.

According to the VPC, there were 50,630 gun dealers in 2007.

http://www.vpc.org/studies/dealers07.pdf

According to the article provided by the OP, there were the following numbers of unaccounted firearms in the following years:

2008: 22,770
2009: 18,323
2010: 21,041

This means that on average, assuming a constant number of dealers (50,630) each dealer lost .45 firearms in 2008, .36 firearms in 2009, and .42 firearms in 2010. That is, on average, each firearm dealer lost less than one firearm a year over the last 4 years.

No doubt there are unscrupulous dealers, and they should be dealt with.

But the numbers show that this "lost firearm" problem is really not much of a problem.