[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14154-14155]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        30,000 MISSING FIREARMS

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, according to data released this month by 
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ATF, gun 
dealers in this country ``lost'' an average of 82 firearms every day 
last year. That means more than 30,000 firearms are mysteriously 
unaccounted for in gun dealers' inventories in 2007 alone. With no 
record of sale, these guns could be prime candidates for sale on the 
black market.
  Perhaps even more disturbing is that the Brady Center to Prevent Gun 
Violence believes that the 30,000 guns are actually likely an 
undercount of the total number of guns that disappeared from gun shops 
last year. The ATF conducted inspections at approximately 10,000 of the 
Nation's 60,000 gun dealers last year, finding over 30,000 firearms 
missing from the dealers' inventories with no record of sale. The other 
50,000 dealers were not inspected due to limited ATF resources. In 
fiscal year 2005, the ATF examined 3,083 gun dealers and found 12,274 
missing firearms.
  The underground market for guns is apparently largely supplied by the 
diversion of this massive number of guns from licensed gun shops into 
the hands of criminals. Based on its own gun-trafficking 
investigations, the ATF has concluded that corrupt gun dealers are the 
largest source of firearms diverted to the illegal market. The Brady 
Center report, ``Death Valley: Profile of a Rogue Gun Dealer,'' details 
one particular gun dealer who was cited over 900 times for Federal gun 
law violations. Over 480 guns from this dealer were apparently traced 
to gun crimes, including 41 assaults and 11 murders. In 2003 alone, the 
dealer reportedly failed to account for 422 guns, more than one-quarter 
of his entire inventory, during a single inspection.
  This kind of activity can be addressed by vigorously enforcing our 
gun laws, providing law enforcement with stronger tools to crack down 
on gun trafficking, corrupt gun dealers, and criminals, and by passing 
sensible gun safety legislation. Unfortunately, the failure of Congress 
to act on several common sense bills has allowed criminals and possibly 
terrorists continued easy access to guns. I urge my colleagues to 
reverse this trend of inaction, and to help put a stop to this huge 
source of guns for the black market.

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