RSS
Home
Brady Campaign misrepresents ATF data to promote 'more guns, more crime' message
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, America’s preeminent gun control organization, recently issued a report suggesting that states with “weak gun laws” are the nation’s major sources of “crime guns.” But as with other Brady reports, a deeper examination is in order before accepting their conclusions.
Curious turnaround
Earlier this year, the Brady Campaign claimed that the Tiahrt Amendment restricted law enforcement from accessing ATF trace data:
The so-called Tiahrt Amendment (named after Congressman Todd Tiahrt of Kansas) includes several riders attached annually to Justice Department appropriations legislation since 2004 that make it harder for law enforcement to prevent gun violence. They should be repealed.
In this new press release, Brady uses “ATF crime gun trace data” as a reliable source upon which to base their conclusion that:
Gun dealers in states with weak gun laws supply guns to criminals in other states at a rate more than five times higher than dealers in states with stronger gun laws, according to a Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence analysis of newly released ATF crime gun trace data.
Apparently, the Brady Campaign has decided that law enforcement does have sufficient access to ATF trace data, and that this data helps Brady to “prevent gun violence” by citing it in their publications.
The ATF data indicates that there appears to be few, if any, restrictions on trace requests.
In 2008, there were 245,691 total traces from U.S. law enforcement agencies, a 6.2% increase over the 231,421 trace requests in 2007.
Law enforcement submitted requests for a variety of reasons. Weapons possession was the most frequent: 63,281 or 25.8% of the total. There were 7,957 homicide-related requests (3.2%), 26,841 were drug-related (10.9%), 6,955 requests were tied to aggravated assaults (2.8%), and 4,901 (2.0%) were related to robberies.*
But trace requests occurred for many reasons, including property crimes (3,309), health/safety (9,388), and many others.
ATF reality
After researching the ATF trace reports extensively, Brady claims the data “proves” that there is significant gun trafficking, as noted in the quote above claiming that “gun dealers in states with weak gun laws supply [most of the] guns to criminals.”
But their conclusion doesn’t concur with what the ATF says about their firearms trace reports. Curiously, Brady ignored page 2 of each state’s report, which notes:
· “Law enforcement agencies may request firearms traces for any reason, and those reasons are not necessarily reported to the Federal Government. Not all firearms used in crime are traced and not all firearms traced are used in crime.”
· “Firearms selected for tracing are not chosen for purposes of determining which types, makes or models of firearms are used for illicit purposes. The firearms selected do not constitute a random sample and should not be considered representative of the larger universe of all firearms used by criminals, or any subset of that universe.” [Emphasis added]
In other words, the ATF cautions that:
· There is no relationship between reported trace data and patterns of gun usage in crime.
· The trace data is not a scientific sample that can be extrapolated to prove anything about criminal usage of firearms.
Only 8 traces–0.004% of all requests listed by category–were specifically for weapons trafficking. It seems reasonable that since law enforcement has the freedom to request traces for any or NO reason, major concerns over firearms trafficking would have generated more of these requests.
Most importantly, there is no requirement to list a reason for the request: 10,137 trace requests provided no reason (4.9% of all listed by category). Nor is a crime necessarily linked to the request: 21,786 (10.5%) were for firearms “found” by police.
Bottom line:
· Police have broad freedom to request firearm traces.
· Trace requests are not necessarily linked to a crime.
· The ATF data provides no conclusive evidence that guns originating in one state are used in crime in any state.
Next, we will examine how Brady ignores bias in the trace data, and other hidden truths that render their conclusions dangerously unreliable, from the public policy perspective.
* These numbers are probably low. ATF reports only display the 9-12 most common request types for each state, combining the rest into the “other” category.
Next: Part 2
****************************************
For in-depth analysis of the issues discussed here, read Howard’s book Four Hundred Years of Gun Control: Why Isn’t It Working?, which deconstructs the gun control agenda and motivates more people to support our civil right of self-defense. Autographed copies are available from the author.
(Photo courtesty of Oleg Volk)
Have you read the latest from all the Gun Rights Examiners? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles:
Comments
Yesterday, Somali pirates attacked the commercial cargo ship Maersk Alabama. This time, however, an armed security team successfully thwarted the …
The Washington Times reported today that a Washington bureaucrat believes banning semi-automatic rifles will save Mexico’s government. But he …
- National - David Codrea
- Cleveland - Dan White
- Los Angeles - John Longenecker
- St. Louis - Kurt Hofmann
- Charlotte - Paul Valone
- Denver - Dan Bidstrup
- DC - Mike Stollenwerk
- Minneapolis - John Pierce
- Seattle - Dave Workman
- Atlanta - Ed Stone
- Wisconsin - Gene German
- Boston - Ron Bokleman
- Grand Rapids - Skip Coryel
- Cheyenne - Anthony Bouchard
- Phoenix - Douglas Little
- Knoxville - Liston Matthews
- David Hardy - Arms and the Law
- Gun News Daily
- War on Guns
- The High Road
- Say Uncle
- NRA News
- Free Republic
- Jeff Soyer - Alphecca.com
- Snowflakes in Hell
- Nicki Fellenzer - The Liberty Zone
- Dave Kopel
- Massad Ayoob
- A Keyboard and a .45
- The Real Gun Guys
- Wake Up America
- Clayton Cramer - Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog
- Oleg Volk - A Human Right
- National Rifle Association
- Texas State Rifle Association
- Keep and Bear Arms
- California Rifle and Pistol Association
- Gun Owners of America
- Second Amendment Foundation
- USA Carry
- Canadian Shooting Sports Association
- Canada's National Firearms Association
- Ted Nugent
- Georgia Carry
- Open Carry
- Armed Females of America
- Future of Freedom Foundation
- Second Amendment Sisters
- Liberty Belles
