April 22, 1993 MEMORANDUM FROM: PHB SUBJECT: BATF TRACES FROM NEW YORK CITY There are a number of problems with pretending that tracing a few guns to Virginia proves the state to have been a major source for gun trafficking. First, BATF tracing is generally recognized as fairly worthless for understanding anything about "crime" guns. The Congressional Research Service noted: The 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....the firearms selected for tracing do not constitute a random sample and cannot be considered representative of the larger universe of all firearms used by criminals, or of any subset of that universe.... Second, traced guns are not necessarily "crime guns." The Police Foundation noted in 1977 that 70-85% of traces may be of guns found, turned in, or seized for possession, not for any misuse in any particular crime [Firearm Abuse, 1977]. Even traces noting circumstances related to a crime do not mean the gun was used in a crime. A gun found in a homicide investigation and traced will identify the gun as related to "homicide" even if the gun was found on the body of the victim and not used in any crime. Third, most crime guns are not traced. In New York City, there are about 50- 60,000 gun-related violent crime committed each year, most of which are not solved. And there are a total of 15-20,000 guns seized or otherwise taken into police custody each year, most of which are not involved in violent crimes. But BATF is asked to trace less than 10% of these guns. While claiming, for example, that 25% of NYC crime guns for the first three quarters of 1992 traced by BATF came from Virginia, it should be noted that there were 35,000 gun- related violent crimes committed in New York City during that period, including about 1,000 homicides. Three guns from homicide investigations were traced to Virginia by BATF; 32 from investigations of violent crimes in general. Nothing can be learned about the source of real crime guns from such data. Fourth, recent BATF tracing from NYC is more skewed than normal. The agency ignored all crime guns except those less than two years old, thus excluding a majority of seized guns from any attempt at tracing. In addition, BATF focused investigations on Virginia dealers, so guns were traced to Virginia because they were followed from Virginia to New York as part of a BATF investigation. Any state BATF focused dealer investigations on would thus be overrepresented in subsequent traces.