[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 85 (Thursday, June 29, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6106-S6107]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
GUN TRAFFICKING REPORT
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, last week the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms (ATF) released a new report about the illegal firearms
market. The ATF's report documents 1,530 criminal investigations
involving firearms traffickers for the time period between July 1996
and December 1998. These trafficking investigations led to the recovery
of more than 84,000 illegal firearms and the prosecution of more than
1,700 defendants.
The ATF report provides significant insight in to the gun trafficking
trade. The investigation reveals that too many loopholes in our
national framework for firearms distribution permits traffickers to
divert legal guns to the illegal marketplace. The vulnerabilities in
our law, identified by the ATF, are a result of corrupt federal
firearms licensees, who were associated with only 10 percent of the
investigations in the report but accounted for nearly half of the
firearms involved, a staggering 40,000 guns; gun shows, which supplied
channels for 26,000 guns, the second highest number of illegally
trafficked firearms in the investigation; straw purchasers, who bought
and transferred firearms to unlicensed sellers or prohibited users;
unlicensed sellers, who were not required to conduct Brady background
checks or maintain records of their sales; and firearms theft.
Mr. President, we can no longer afford to ignore the deficiencies in
our federal firearm laws. Gun trafficking gives criminal users and
young people access to tens of thousands of illegal guns. If Congress
wants to reduce firearm trafficking, then first and foremost, we must
close the gun show loophole. Secretary Lawrence Summers, who oversees
the ATF explained ``This report . . . shows that we must do more to
close every trafficking channel, starting with closing the gun show
loophole . . .'' Furthermore, we must increase criminal penalties for
traffickers and crack down on corrupt federal firearms licensees, straw
purchasers, and unlicensed sellers. I urge Congress to pay attention to
this report and pass sensible gun measures that will end the deadly
flow of firearms to the illegal marketplace.
I request an article be printed in the Record entitled ``The
Biography of a Gun,'' which explains how a single gun makes the
transition from legal to illegal commerce.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, Apr. 9, 2000]
The Nation--The Biography of a Gun
(By Jayson Blair and Sarah Weissman)
In America, more than 200,000 guns are traced by law
enforcement each year. This is the story of one of those
weapons--named after its serial number--No. 997126, a 12-
shot, 9 millimeter Jennings semi-automatic.
The gun, made mostly of plastic, was manufactured in 1995,
at a factory near John Wayne International Airport in Costa
Mesa, Calif. It is now wrapped in plastic, locked in a police
property clerk's office near the New York State Supreme Court
building in downtown Brooklyn. In between, the gun is
believed to have been used in at least 13 crimes--including
the murder of 2 people and the wounding of at least 3 others
in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn.
The dead were a 16-year-old boy who was sitting on top of a
mailbox and a 48-year-old shopkeeper who was the father of 4
children. The injured were a man who got in the way during a
robbery, a Jehovah's Witness from Chicago who had moved to
Brooklyn to do volunteer work, and a rookie New York City
police officer.
In New York, about 6 in 10 murder victims are killed with
firearms.
No. 997126 is 6 inches long and weighs 16 ounces. It was
made at the Bryco Arms plant, where more than 200,000
inexpensive handguns are manufactured each year.
[[Page S6107]]
Byrco is owned by Janice Jennings, the former daughter-in-
law of George Jennings, who founded the first in what became
a cluster of Southern California gun manufacturers known
collectively as the Ring of Fire.
From Byrco, the gun was shipped to B.L. Jennings, Inc., a
Carson City, Nev., distributor owned by George Jennings's son
and Janice's ex-husband, Bruce. No. 997126 was bought by Acua
Sport Corporation, a federally licensed wholesaler in
Bellefontaine, Ohio. Acua sold it, for about $90, to Classic
Pawn and Jewelry, Inc. in Chickamauga, Ga.
In August 1998, Classic resold the gun to a Georgia woman
for about $150. Investigators believe that the woman was
buying the 9 millimeter gun as a straw purchaser on behalf of
Charles Chapman. He was prohibited by federal law, because of
a previous felony conviction, from purchasing firearms.
Investigators say they believe Mr. Chapman drove the firearm
to New York, where it was sold to a member of the Bloods
gang. And that is how, investigators say, the gun got to
Demeris Tolbert.
The police say No. 997126 was recovered when Mr. Tolbert
was arrested on the roof of the Howard Houses after the
shooting of a New York police officer, Tanagiot Benekos, who
was looking for suspects in the killing of a pawnbroker
earlier that afternoon.
Mr. Tolbert had been paroled the previous January after
serving three years of a nine year sentence for drug
possession. Prosecutors say that after the New York City
Police Department's ballistics laboratory linked the gun to
slugs recovered from the earlier shootings, Mr. Tolbert, 32,
of Brownville confessed.
Investigators say he also took responsibility for a 1990
shooting of a clerk at an East New York bodega, the 1991
killing of a Crown Heights security guard, four other
shootings and an attempted murder.
The Brooklyn District Attorney's office has charged him
with murder, attempted murder and attempted murder of a
police officer.
The ballistic information and serial number were matched
against a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms database,
which prompted a federal gun-smuggling investigation. Special
Agent Edgar A. Domenech, who oversees the bureau's New York
and New Jersey division, said the A.T.F. traced the weapon
and 30 others to Charles Chapman. He is being held, along
with alleged accomplices, on charges of gun trafficking and
conspiracy to illegally purchase firearms and transport them
for sale to criminals in New York, where more stringent laws
bar the sort of wholesale purchases permitted in Georgia.
Howard Safir, the New York City police commissioner, has
proposed tighter, uniform national licensing regulations, and
the annual registration of firearms to hold owners
accountable for the illegal sales of weapons they purchase.
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