Did you know the ATF has exactly the same number of people today that it had in 1966 investigating firearm violations? That statement is according to Senator Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY)

 

Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) released some details this week on their proposed federal gun law.

The essence of the law is a significant five year increase in BATFE (ATF) expenditures of $375 million primarily to hire 1500 new ATF agents and investigators to reduce gun trafficking. The ATF currently has a roster of slightly over 5000 employees.

Senator McCarthy, in a press conference this week, claimed that the ATF currently has the same number of people working on the illegal gun trade that it had in 1966. Considering the ATF in 1966 was a tax collection unit of the IRS and did not start conducting firearms trafficking investigations until several years later, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that those who traffic in bad data and ideas would make such a ridiculous statement.

The facts are ATF conducted almost 12,000 on-site gun dealer inspections looking for irregular sales in fiscal year 2009. Additionally, the firearms division of ATF has increased its headcount almost every year since 1972. They currently have almost 3500 agents dedicated to firearms investigations and inspections. As an example of the increase in personnel, it was reported a total number of investigative personnel at ATF of 1,940 in 1995 per a GAO report to Congress. In the past 15 years the headcount of firearms division personnel has increased by almost 45%.

On the surface one would assume the increase in funding to stop illegal gun trafficking would have some merit. But, the activity of gun trafficking is a relatively new phenomena as a result of firearm laws passed over the last four decades.

Prior to the Gun Control Act of 1968, gun trafficking was limited to small quantities of fully automatic firearms made illegal for sale to the general public in 1934. Prior to GCA-68, most investigations for illegal gun trafficking, again limited to fully automatic firearms, were conducted by other law enforcement agencies, primarily the FBI. The phenomena of gun trafficking in the U.S. are a direct result of laws passed in the last 40 years restricting access to firearm purchases. Like prohibition on the sale of alcohol in the early 1900s, which spawned an enormous outbreak in criminal trafficking of illegal alcohol, gun laws have created a rich environment for the illegal sale of guns in a black market. Like alcohol, prior to strict enforcement, illegal gun sales and trafficking was anecdotal at best.

To further illustrate how government restrictions on perfectly legal products create crime, one only needs to look at illegal trafficking of cigarettes. Heavy taxation of cigarettes by local, state and federal governments has created an environment where the illegal purchase, trafficking and theft of cigarettes on a large scale has become a lucrative criminal activity in the past 10 years. To combat the increase in trafficking, created by the government through heavy taxation, a bill was introduced this year called “Prevent all Cigarette Trafficking Act of 2009.” It will include smokeless tobacco within its scope and requires delivery sellers to maintain records of sales to Americans in an effort to obtain maximum enforcement of taxes and eliminate smuggling of cigarettes nationwide. This will no doubt go down as being as successful as the enforcement on the smuggling and sale of illegal drugs, which has been by any measure of success, a dismal failure.

Senators Gillibrand’s and McCarthy’s new federal bill promises to be a dismal failure as well. The facts are that gun trafficking has increased as a result of government interference in free trade of perfectly legal products. The result will be the sizeable increase in a government agency whose only purpose is to enforce laws that abridge a constitutional right.