[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 86 (Thursday, May 24, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2935-S2936]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. LEAHY (for himself and Mr. Nelson):
  S. 2974. A bill to amend section 923 of title 18, United States Code, 
to require an electronic, searchable database of the importation, 
production, shipment, receipt, sale, or other disposition of firearms; 
to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, right now, in a small town in West Virginia 
90 miles outside of our Nation's capital, dedicated employees of the 
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) are 
diligently searching through millions of firearms sales records at the 
National Tracing Center. They are busily responding to urgent requests 
from detectives and agents to trace firearms found at crime scenes 
throughout the country. By the end of the day, they will likely have 
completed more than 1,000 requests, providing law enforcement with 
information that can lead to arrests, prosecutions, and ultimately 
justice for victims of violent crime.
  The tracing center plays a critical and unique role in keeping our 
communities safe. It is the only crime gun tracing facility in the 
country. Its sole purpose is to help track down and hold criminals 
accountable.
  One would expect Congress to fully and unequivocally support this 
mission. Yet, inexplicably, Congress has done the opposite. Relenting 
to pressure from the gun lobby, Congress placed archaic hurdles on 
crime gun traces, prohibiting the ATF from digitizing or electronically 
searching through firearms records.
  These restrictions were born out of an unfounded fear that can only 
be described as a conspiracy theory: that allowing records to be 
electronically searched would lead to firearms--presumably to include 
my own--being seized by the government en masse, in clear violation of 
both the Second and Fourth Amendments.
  This unworldly fear is having a very real-world impact. In an era 
when an electronic trace could be completed in an instant, the ATF is 
instead forced to locate individual records by visiting Federal 
firearms licensees or searching by hand through the records housed at 
the National Tracing Center; these National Tracing Center records 
currently number 800 million, and are

[[Page S2936]]

growing by an additional 2 million each month.
  Some of these records have been damaged by flooding and mold. 
Countless more have been relegated to rented shipping containers in the 
parking lot, as the floor of the tracing center is structurally unable 
to support the weight of so many thousands of boxes. Other records are 
stored as images on microfilm, forcing ATF employees to reel through up 
to 10,000 records on a single roll to find the one desired firearm.
  Tracing requests are processed every single day, 24 hours a day, so 
that when a homicide detective finds a firearm believed to have been 
used in a murder, the detective can determine the chain of custody for 
that firearm, which may lead to a suspect.
  I asked the ATF about the impact of these restrictions on crime gun 
traces at a recent hearing of the Judiciary Committee Acting Director 
Thomas Brandon stated that in these criminal investigations, ``time 
matters, [and] getting accurate information can develop the critical 
lead.'' He testified that if the ATF were able to electroncially search 
through records it would be ``beneficial for public safety.''
  I agree. That is why today I am introducing the Crime Gun Tracing 
Modernization Act, which will bring our nation's tracing capabilities 
into the 21st century. This legislation would empower the ATF to 
digitize and electronically search through its firearms records, so 
that it can quickly and accurately connect crime guns with purchasers. 
Yet this legislation is also narrowly tailored; it only permits the ATF 
to search through firearms sale and disposition records that it already 
has access to, and only for the purposes of criminal and national 
security investigations, and it strictly prohibits searches using an 
individual's name or other personally identifiable information.
  This legislation represents only a modest step, but an important 
step. There are few signs more revealing of Congress's inability to 
responsibly legislate gun policy than its insistence that law 
enforcement not be allowed to effectively search through records 
already in its possession. The gun lobby cannot be permitted to tie the 
hands of agents and detectives investigating violent gun crime. We 
cannot let a baseless conspiracy theory drive our public safety 
policies.
  It is time for Congress to fix our mistakes. It is time to bring one 
of our Nation's premier law enforcement agencies, which in turn serves 
every Federal, State, and local agency in the country, out of the Stone 
Age. It is no surprise that this legisation is supported by important 
voices within the law enforcement community, including the Federal Law 
Enforcement Officers Association, Major Cities Chiefs Association, and 
Association of Prosecuting Attorneys.
  I am also proud that March For Our Lives, led by the students of 
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, strongly 
supports this legislation. We in Congress owe it to those who have been 
victimized by gun violence to do something. There are many commonsense 
steps we can and should take right now. That includes removing 
indefensible restrictions on law enforcement that waste public safety 
resources and delay critical investigations of violent gun crime. I 
urge my fellow senators to join me and Senator Nelson in supporting 
this important legislation.
                                 ______