[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Page 4135]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    DEALERS MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the demand for firearms by criminals and 
other prohibited purchasers is high. Unfortunately, there are also some 
dealers willing to supply those firearms. The simple fact is that 
criminals would not be able to so readily acquire weapons without gun 
dealers who are willing to bypass gun sales laws. This willingness by 
some licensed gun dealers to supply gun traffickers with firearms 
provides a steady flow of guns into the illegal market.
  Multiple sales of the same model of gun to an individual are 
considered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, 
ATF, to be among the prime indicators that gun trafficking is occurring 
from a gun shop. Gun collectors generally do not collect duplicates of 
the same firearm. The attempt to make multiple purchases of the same 
weapon should raise a red flag for the dealer to the possibility of 
trafficking, and reports of multiple sales to the ATF by responsible 
gun dealers provide a significant percentage of leads for gun 
trafficking investigations. According to ATF reports, handguns sold as 
part of multiple sales comprised nearly a quarter of all guns sold in 
1999 that were traced to crime that same year. Moreover, guns with 
obliterated serial numbers, a clear sign of trafficking, are 
substantially more likely to have been part of a multiple sale. Dealers 
are responsible for the products they sell, and they must be held 
accountable to inquire about the purpose the buyer declares for 
purchasing multiple handguns at one time and report such suspicious 
behavior to the ATF. One step several States have taken in order to 
address the issue of multiple purchases is instituting a one-handgun-
per-month purchasing restriction.
  Another common tool traffickers use to acquire firearms from licensed 
dealers is to avoid multiple sale reporting requirements by waiting 
short periods of time between handgun purchases. During a police 
operation in Chicago, some dealers suggested to undercover officers 
that they space out their purchases in order to avoid detection by law 
enforcement. Under Federal law, dealers are required to report only 
sales of two or more handguns within a 5 day period to the ATF. By 
encouraging purchasers to stagger their purchases every 6 days, a 
dealer would be able to circumvent reporting potential trafficking to 
law enforcement.
  Using in-store accomplices to fill out the required Federal paperwork 
is also a common method gun traffickers employ. The most obvious sign 
of this occurs when the person who fills out the Federal purchasing 
forms is not the person looking at, handling, or selecting the gun to 
be purchased or paying for the weapon. Even if the purchaser is buying 
only a single handgun, this type of sale should not be permitted by a 
licensed gun dealer.
  These types of illegal transactions likely occur every day in some 
licensed gun dealerships across the country. We must make it harder for 
criminals to get guns to decrease the number of gun violence victims. 
Those gun dealers who willingly aid gun traffickers must be held 
accountable for their actions.

                          ____________________