Feds Want Reports of Rifle Sales

To curb weapons smuggling to Mexican border areas, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will be requiring licensed gun sellers in border states to report all sales of military-style assault rifles.

ATF says the number of these weapons found at crime scenes in Mexico has increased by more than 100 percent since 2004. “According to ATF trace data, investigative experience and Mexican law enforcement officials, a large number of rifles are being used in violent crimes in Mexico and along the border,” acting ATF director Ken Melson said in statement.

The pilot program, which would be implemented in Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona and evaluated for effectiveness after one year, is awaiting final approval from the federal Office of Management and Budget. The possible hang-up is whether it complies with the federal Paperwork Reduction Act. A similar law for handguns generates more than 179,000 reports a year, says ATF chief spokesman Scot Thomasson.

Thomasson says the policy would speed up the time it takes the agency to detect weapons smuggling, which he defines specifically as “movement of firearms from legal to illegal commerce.” In the current system, the gun has to be recovered at a crime scene for an investigation to start, which could be months, or even years, after the sale.

With the new policy, he says, “a report is filled out that afternoon [of the sale], sent to us, and a lead is sent down to the field. Now we are going out and running down that lead with that individual to determine, did he buy the gun for his use, which is fine; there is nothing wrong with it … or did he buy it with the intent purpose of selling it to someone else?”

Gun rights advocates criticize the planned effort as targeting legitimate businesses for additional regulation in only a few states. I'd suggest the policy is also a back-door method of blaming border violence on U.S. gun sellers.